Pride sin Or Virtue?: History and Phenomenology of a Janus-faced Emotion 9004683275, 9789004683273

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Pride—​Sin or Virtue?

Value Inquiry Book Series Founding Editor Robert Ginsberg Editor-​in-​Chief J.D. Mininger

volume 394

Philosophy in Spain Edited by Stella Villarmea (Complutense University of Madrid)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/​vibs and brill.com/​psp

Pride—​Sin or Virtue? History and Phenomenology of a Janus-​Faced Emotion By

Ricardo Parellada Translated by

S.P. Brykczynski With the collaboration of

Steve Crook Ricardo Parellada

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Translation from the Spanish: El orgullo. ¿Vicio o virtud?, Madrid: Síntesis, 2019. isbn 978-​84-​9171-​417-​0. Cover illustration: Painting entitled Boceto by María José Redondo (2006). The Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data is available online at https://​cata​log​.loc​.gov lc record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov​/2023045116

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/​brill-​typeface. issn 0929-​8 436 isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​6 8326-​6 (hardback) isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​6 8327-​3 (e-​book) doi 10.1163/9789004683273 Copyright 2024 by Ricardo Parellada. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-​free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

To the memory of my mother, the painter María José Redondo

∵

Contents  Foreword xi Introduction 1 1  The Duality of Pride 4 1 Emotion and Character 4 2 The State of the Question 9 3 History and Philosophy 16

Part 1 The History of Pride 2  Gods, Heroes and Men 23 1 The Warrior Aristocracy 23 2  The Olympic Games 25 3  The Panegyric of Democracy 28 4  The Myth of Prometheus 31 3  The Pride of Philosophers 35 1 The Philosopher-​Kings 35 2  Greatness of Soul 39 3  Hubris, Outrage and Excess 44 4  Pride and Work 46 4  The Hubris of the Angel 51 1 The Problem of Sources 51 2 The Creation of the Angels 52 3 The Sin of the Angel 55 4 The Fall of the Angel 57 5  The Hubris of the Human 64 1 The State of Innocence 64 2 General Pride and Special Pride 66 3 Moral Humility and Spiritual Humility 71 4 Original Sin 73 5 The Implications of the Thomist Interpretation 78

viii Contents 6  Piety and Justice 82 1 The Four Stages of History 82 2 The Two Pillars of the Old Testament 83 3 The Exclusivity of the God of Israel 85 4 Orphans, Widows and Foreigners 89 7  Pride and Knowledge 94 1 The Devil’s Crony 94 2 The Curiosity of Doctor Faustus 98 3 The Plurality of Faustuses 102 4 Excess and Pride 107 5 The Condemnation and Salvation of Faustus 111

Part 2 The Philosophy of Pride 8  The Virtue of Pride 119 1  From Myth to Lógos 119 2 Opinions, Desires, Emotions 121 3 The Passions of the Soul 123 4 Pride, Magnanimity and Humility 128 5  Pride and Dignity 134 9  Humility and Resentment 138 1 The Morality of Aristocrats and the Morality of Slaves 138 2 The Transvaluation of Values 140 3  Christian Humility, Resentment and Fraternity 144 4 The Ambiguities of Christian Morality 150 5 Nietzschean Love and Pride 154 10  The Pride of the Masses 163 1 Philosophy and Poetry 163 2 No ​One Is More Than Any One 166 3 Resentment and Mass-​Pride 171 11  Identity and Difference 174 1 Black Pride 174 2  l gbtiq+​ Pride 177 3 Collective Pride 180 4 Science and Pride 185

Contents

12  The Phenomenology of Pride 189 1 The Essence of Pride 189 2 Variations of the Proximate Kind: Emotion 190 3 Variations of Subject and Material Object: Oneself 192 4 Variations of the Formal Object: Excellence 197 5 Variations of Modality: Order and Disorder 202

Part 3 The Future of Pride 13  Post-​pride 207 1 Infra-​humanity and Post-​humanity 207 2 Subhuman, Human and Superhuman Dignity 209 3 The Morality and Pride of Supermen 213 4 Fundamental Prideological Meditation 217 5 The Transvaluation of Pride 222  Bibliography 227  Index 233

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Foreword The book Pride—​Sin or Virtue? History and Phenomenology of a Janus-​Faced Emotion by Ricardo Parellada combines two timely fields of research: the history and the phenomenology of emotions. These fields are usually cultivated independently, but here they are taken to be complementary. Without a sound articulation of both, we cannot grasp and analyze thoroughly the richness of human emotional life. This book deals with one of the most ambiguous and paradoxical emotions: pride can be a very noble feeling, but also the worst of sins. Pride has been the object of recent and sustained monographs. The author of this essay holds that the ambiguity and richness of pride explains this interest and argues that other treatments fail to account for them and for their varied historical and philosophical implications. This is what this book aims at. In order to do so, the initial linguistic and conceptual analysis paves the way for the two journeys offered: historical and philosophical. Although this is a philosophical essay, it resorts to a variety of historical, literary and theological sources in order to deal with Greek hubris, the sins of man and the angel or Faustus’ cravings. It can be enjoyed by a variety of readers interested in Philosophy, the Humanities or the History of Religions. Philosophical analysis leads to the phenomenology of pride, where the historical and philosophical variations come together. In addition, when dealing with contemporary forms of pride, the author resorts to key Spanish philosophers and writers, such as Ortega, Unamuno and Machado. For instance, he offers a thesis on the similarities and differences between the feeling of resentment, analyzed by Nietzsche, and what the author calls, following Ortega, the feeling of mass pride. Thus, the Brill Series Philosophy in Spain is a good fit for this book. Stella Villarmea Editor, Philosophy in Spain Series

Introduction A hero’s wounded pride proved the genesis for one of the most beautiful poems ever; an angel’s hubris led to his fall; and the immoderate pride of a man led to his expulsion from Earthly Paradise and the sale of his soul to the Devil. Pride and hubris play a central role in many myths. This essay deals with the history of these emotions and examines their relevance in the contemporary world. It includes stories, literary creations and philosophical analysis, both ancient and modern, to demonstrate the continuity and transformation of these emotions and their role in human life across time. The history and philosophy of pride are marked by a peculiar duality, reflected in the different shades of meanings in various languages, which give it a special place in human emotional geography: pride is both an emotion or feeling (you can be or feel proud) and a character trait (you can be a proud man or woman). Being proud of someone or something which deserves it is a very agreeable and noble feeling. Being a proud, hubristic, arrogant or vain person is very unattractive. And the sin of pride or hubris is the worst of all. These simple distinctions form part of everyday language. Chapter 1 is introductory. The first section deals with this basic duality of pride and hubris, emotion and character. I make use of the distinctions and shades of meaning found in ordinary language, by way of a preliminary conceptual guide to which I will refer throughout the book. In the second section, I briefly present the specific point of view I have adopted in this essay which distinguishes it from others with a similar subject-​matter. To do so, I briefly review the basic theses of some recent monographs dedicated to pride. In the third section, I present a general overview of the subjects tackled in the historical and philosophic parts of the essay, which are complementary. For the first part, I have chosen historical events and real and mythological characters I consider particularly relevant. As can easily be imagined, Ancient Greece and Judaeo-​Christian religion are at the core of the history of pride. The history of emotions is interesting in itself, but it also allows us to get to know and understand contemporary emotions better. These emotions appear natural, but if we stop and analyse them a little, we can see that they contain within them the rich substratum of their history. The second part has a more analytical approach. I focus on the collective dimension of pride and its relation to equality, identity and difference. The philosophical analysis leads me to the phenomenology of pride, which is only possible in the light of history and preceding analysis. Finally, I allow myself some speculation about the future of pride. © Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_002 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC ​​B Y-​​N C-​​n d 4.0 license.

2 Introduction In the bibliography, I note the editions and translations used of classical works. On a few occasions when I have been able to, I have made a slight adjustment to the translation of a passage. Whenever possible, I cite paragraphs and sections which are valid across all the editions. When this is not the case, I cite the page numbers preceded by a colon. I feel quotes and references are expressions of gratitude rather than justice and I have tried not to infringe either. I apologise in advance for any errors I may have made. I would like to give my warm thanks to Professor Ramón Rodríguez for the invitation to write this book and for his wise counsel throughout the writing process. The essay is also a result of my participation in the Institute of Religious Studies at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, an intellectually stimulating and convivial environment. This Institute has generously funded the English translation of this book. I am very grateful to the Institute and to its Director, Professor Juan Antonio Álvarez-​Pedrosa. I am also grateful to S.P. Brykczynski, who put great care into the translation, and to Steve Crook, the reviewer. I also warmly thank Brill and Professor Stella Villarmea, the Series Editor, for hosting this publication, and Erika Mandarino and Helena Schöb, Editors for Philosophy at Brill, for competently conducting the process. Quotations have been generally taken from the editions listed in the bibliography, but the translator has made some adjustments to adapt them to the book’s vocabulary. In the case of originally Spanish quotes, translations are due to the translator of this book. Nevertheless, we list available translations for the sake of reference. I drafted some of the chapters during a sabbatical period which included a research stay at Oxford University in the spring of 2017. I would like to express my thanks to the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University, and above all to my own: the Faculty of Philosophy at Universidad Complutense. I am very grateful to some of the people who have read and commented on parts of the book. Ramón Rodríguez did not allow me to consider it finished before its time, when there were still some important elements of conceptual analysis missing. Ramón Ortega pointed out the same deficiency. Sonia Rodríguez made innumerable corrections of form and content, above all with respect to the transitions between sections. Ignacio Cabello helped me straighten out some of the comments on Job. David Teira pointed to an essential aspect of the relation between pride and comparisons. Roberto R. Aramayo helped with the book’s title. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Julián Santos, Isabel Zarza, Javier Calvo, Ricardo Gutiérrez and Lola Zarza provided relevant comments. Sonia, Ignacio, Mikel Gorriti and Pilar Fernández Beites have written nice reviews of the Spanish original. Jorge Bartolomé and Marshall Weiss have given editorial help, supported by research project pid2020-​115142ga-​I00 (Spanish Government), led by Alba Jiménez.

Introduction

3

All the observations of friends and colleagues have been of great use to me, although unfortunately I have not been able to acknowledge all of them. I would like to thank the staff at the faculty library for their help, in particular to Miguel Ángel Rivera and Mercedes Rosales. Finally, I would like to express my profound intellectual and personal gratitude to two great professors and to honour their memory. I had the privilege to be first their student and later their colleague. In appearance, Ángel d’Ors and Quintín Racionero were very different; but inside, each had a very large and warm heart.

­c hapter 1

The Duality of Pride 1

Emotion and Character

The fundamental duality of pride is patent in ordinary language. It is expressed and modulated in a variety of ways and recorded in diverse ways in dictionaries. I am going to base my exposition on the only language I am at ease in, which is my own; but I am also going to take the occasional look at languages close to it, because different languages express various aspects of the phenomena and their history with singular skill. Today’s ordinary language when talking about pride allows us to establish conceptual coordinates of great use for both historical and philosophical analysis. The duality of pride as an emotion and character or attitude is expressed in a particularly clear and precise way in the great Spanish dictionary of usage by the great philologist María Moliner. It is worth looking at her precise definition of pride, which includes many conceptual elements to which I will refer in this book. She distinguishes between a positive and negative use of the term:



(1) (not disapproving: ‘Feel, Have; for’) m. Someone’s feeling of satisfaction about things related to them to which they attribute merit, or about their own qualities which they consider superior to those of others: ‘He feels a legitimate pride for his work. His children fill him with pride’. (2) (disapproving: ‘Have; of [in]’) Emotion and attitude in which one considers oneself superior to others and shows contempt or aloofness with respect to them: ‘He has pride in his class’. Haughtiness, disdain, arrogance, hubris.

So, according to the non-​disapproving use of the term pride in contemporary Spanish, the mental or psychological phenomenon of pride is an emotion of satisfaction in one’s own things or qualities founded on merit or superiority. Three essential points or notes can be distinguished in this characterization, two fixed (emotion and the self); and a third which takes the form of a disjunction: merit or superiority. This disjunction is not mutually exclusive, as the last two notes may go together or be separate. Superiority, whether real or presumed, does not have to be based on any type of merit. Although pride appears to rest on superiority or excellence, it can also be separate from it and

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_003

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5

be based more exclusively on merit, even though this may not involve superiority. A brief historical background and phenomenological analysis will provide a number of variations in this relationship. At the moment, we can simply say that superiority, excellence or value are the more immediate and obvious features, from both the historical and linguistical point of view. With her exquisite ear for language, María Moliner places merit in first place, because this factor is acquiring increasing importance in the contemporary world. As to the disapproving use of the term pride in contemporary Spanish, the mental or psychological phenomenon of pride is the emotion or attitude of someone who considers themselves superior, scorning and avoiding contact with others. I may add that this attitude is crystallised in a way of being or a feature of character. In this case, we can also distinguish three conceptual notes: attitude, superiority and contempt. The attitude may or may not be accompanied explicitly by the emotion. Without doubt it is pertinent to consider it linked in some way to the emotion or derived from it, although this does not always appear in practice; but what is essential appears to be its stabilization in the éthos or moral character, which is second nature. When the attitude is crystallised in a form of being or feature of character, some of its explicit link with the qualities or things on which superiority or merit is based (the third point above) is lost, so its sole basis ends up being what is one’s own or one’s self as such (the second note). In phenomenological language one can say that this feeling of superiority without reason lacks intentionality or, as I will argue, loses its original intentionality. As to the third note of this second meaning, contempt and isolation, it appears to form part of the second type of pride in a more derivative rather than constitutive way. Overall, its connection with the first two is undoubtedly necessary, which suggests that at this preliminary linguistic point in the analysis, we should make use of what is a venerable term in traditional logical analysis. Perhaps we can consider it a peculiar property (ídion, proprium), or a feature necessarily derived from a conceptual nucleus, although it does not strictly-​speaking form part of it. In the best-​known traditional example, the capacity to laugh is such a property, a necessary and exclusive characteristic of a rational animal, although it does not form a constitutive part of this logical essence or unit. Whatever the case, Castilian Spanish offers a peculiarity which is very relevant for the distinction between the two forms of pride, as reflected correctly by Moliner. The good form is accompanied by the auxiliary verb ‘estar’ and the bad by the auxiliary verb ‘ser’. The difference between estar orgulloso—​ feeling proud—​and ser orgulloso—​being a proud person—​is very clear for any native speaker of the language. Being or feeling proud (in the former sense) is a noble and pleasing emotion, which may be based on very different qualities

6

Chapter 1

or objects. These qualities or objects, if not one’s own, are essential for the subject’s identity, which recognises or attributes importance or value to them. Being a proud person is the form of being, or the quality of character, of someone who, alien to value, is left alone with his presumed glorious superiority. The former type of pride is based on value and the second on the ego. The Spanish language also has a sonorous and venerable term for the latter form of pride: soberbia (hubris or overweening pride). The main definition offered us by María Moliner here is also exemplary: ‘A quality or attitude of a person who considers themself superior to those around them, because of their wealth, their social position or another quality or circumstance, and who despises and humiliates those they consider inferior. Unlike ‘orgullo’ [pride], this word does not designate a quality or attitude that may be considered in some cases as inoffensive and even laudable’. Thus, hubris is identified with the second form of pride. The great philologist adds some relevant but non-​essential elements: two examples of the normal base of pride—​wealth and social position—​and the fact that disrespect for others is often accompanied by the wish to humiliate. And she informs us of something that all speakers also know: the Spanish term orgullo may have a positive or negative sense, but the term soberbia (hubris), except in some cases outside its original scope, is always negative. The precision and lexical refinement of María Moliner constitute a conceptual gold mine and will be of great help in undertaking our research. Naturally, the history and philosophy of pride will allow new elements to emerge from the shadows. Language, myths, facts and analysis will complement each other, and our understanding of these specific phenomena will perhaps be enriched by all of them. But before halting at some stopping points on this journey, I should first complete the linguistic approach with more data. The dictionary of Sebastián de Covarrubias (Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, 1611) suggests a nice derivation for orgullo from the Greek ὀργή (fury) and notes other options such as the Latin arguo (because of the ardour of discussions), which is reflected in the Diccionario de Autoridades (1737). However, whatever one’s opinion of Spanish nationalism, the Spanish term orgullo actually comes from the Catalan orgull. And orgull comes from the Frankish or Old Dutch urgoli or urgol (J. Corominas and J. A. Pascual, Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 1980–​91). These terms mean excellence and excellent, outstanding, so that in this case etymology, which is not always a good guide for sense, gives us precisely one of the three essential notes which we already know. The Spanish term soberbia comes from the Latin superbia, formed out of the adverb, preposition and prefix super, which means above, so that it expresses the idea of being above or superiority. It is true that in today’s

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ordinary language the idea of excellence is more noble than that of superiority, which is frankly unpleasant. In fact, excellence appears to be inherent to the first form of pride: the ‘good’ pride; while superiority belongs in the second form: ‘bad’ pride or hubris. However, things are not as simple as that, whether linguistically, historically, or conceptually. From a linguistic point of view, the term excellence appears to point to a noble value and the term superiority to a mean comparison. However, in reality both terms have quite a similar composition. Excellence contains two significant elements: the adverb or preposition ex-​(from among) and the lexeme cello, which apparently late Latin only preserved in compound forms. The whole means emerge from or stand out. The term superiority is formed from super, which constitutes its sole semantic content. The term consists entirely of converting the simple vertical local relationship between two things into an abstract, and, at root, an axiological relationship, which can take several forms. Thus, the linguistic raw material of excellence and superiority is equally comparative; nevertheless, in the normal sense of the former term it is value which takes precedence, and in the latter, it is comparison. From a historical and conceptual point of view, the relationship between value and comparison is very rich and complex and is subject to all kinds of evolutions and transformations. In fact, it is one of the main guiding threads of the historical and analytical approach. In the history of the ancient Greeks, where we shall begin our journey, there are already two elements which will be ever-​present in the history of pride, despite their later mutations, sometimes intertwined and at others independent: comparison with the gods and the value of knowledge. Judaeo-​Christian prehistory would be inconceivable without a comparison of the angel with God and human beings’ appetite for knowledge. But first, I should add other linguistic considerations. The languages which I have some knowledge of clearly reflect both senses of pride, each expressing this duality in its own way, and they are reflected in the usual dictionaries. Until very recently, this lexical framework was very poorly presented in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española. Fortunately, in recent editions it has improved a lot, perhaps thanks to the somewhat belated influence of Doña María Moliner, to whom we can never be sufficiently grateful and of whom we can never be sufficiently proud. Like Castilian Spanish, Latin, Italian and German express the two forms of pride with the same word—​superbia, orgoglio, Stolz; and in the three there are hundreds of ways of distinguishing the nuanced meanings. In Latin, the term elatio (elevation) also covers both. As in Spanish, Italian and German also have a specific term for the ‘ugly’ pride: superbia and Hochmut. In French, the term

8

Chapter 1

orgueil has particularly become used for the latter, so another term is used for the ‘good’ pride: fierté. Although there is no lack of specific terms and turns of phrase, in English there is the curious case that the same term is used in general for both senses: pride. That is why, when we have to specify the religious dimension of the second sense in English, another specific term is not used, but its nature is made explicit by adding sin: the sin of pride. Another curiosity of English is the Latin etymology of the all-​powerful term pride, which comes from the Latin prodesse (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary). The basic meaning of this term is to be useful, but its sense also shifts subtly to that of be valuable. There is no way of freeing oneself from the Anglo-​Saxon mania or obsession of confusing or mixing utility and value, which is clearly patent even in basic prideology. The French language offers us another small discovery, as among its synonyms for pride it includes dignity (Petit Robert), of all things, although it is given as an old meaning. To explain this curious fact, a little history will be needed. And German precision stores in its ordinary language other pearls worthy of mention. Although the term Stolz can be used for both forms of pride, the German language tends to reserve it for the first sense, more decisively than other languages, and uses the term Hochmut for the second sense. These languages can avoid the ambiguity of the word pride, while others seem to enjoy it. Moreover, German precision reaches places that are unattainable for others, as it includes in a single term the three essential notes I distinguished in good pride: emotion, excellence and the self. It is true that there is a trap involved here, as the term simply consists of sticking these three points together into one. But the fact is that German is capable of expressing with a single term what others can only express by a gross periphrasis: Selbstwertgefühl, that is, a feeling of one’s own value. Everyone writes as well as they can, but it is clear that one should think in German. For reasons that could only be clear at the end of this essay, these three points, these notes, make up a major triad of pride; while the opening of the self to us gives rise to a minor triad, of a more mysterious feeling. As far as I know, not even German can cover bad pride in a single term or cacophonic chord. Moreover, German includes among its normal meanings, the idea that scorn inherent in bad pride or hubris may be directed not only at others, but also at God (Duden Universal Wörterbuch). As can be imagined, the historical importance of this point will reach cataclysmic dimensions. And the German language once more cannot be bettered in attributing pride proverbially to peacocks and Spaniards: stolz wie ein Pfau, stolz wie ein Spanier. It must be said that when it comes to prioritizing, they choose the latter. Preening is spani­ schieren in German, which fits perfectly our new political leaders, worthy heirs

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of the race. Initially, it could be thought that in these expressions only the second sense of pride will operate and that Germans attribute to Spaniards pride tout court: pride without cause. However, the uses of a language tend to encapsulate an infinity of shades of meaning and subtleties. I think that the German proverbs and words include a warmth, a recognition and, perhaps, a subtle, secret and healthy German envy with respect to the incontrovertible fact that Spaniards do not lack serious reasons and grounds to feel this emotion in its most profound and noble version. At any event, although we should not forget other data and nuances, we have found, perhaps the best way of gathering together in precise formulas the initial linguistic approach to the two forms of pride is to seek inspiration boldly in the great lexicographer María Moliner: good pride is a feeling of one’s own excellence, while bad pride or hubris is the attitude of superiority and disdain. 2

The State of the Question

The year 2016 proved a turning point for research on the phenomenon of pride. That year saw the publication of three independent monographs dedicated to the ubiquitous and protean emotion of pride from contrasting points of view. Its authors were researchers from different traditions and disciplines (psychology, art and political philosophy), thus reflecting the interdisciplinary importance of our subject. Given how useful it is to cover the state of research on a subject when determining and formulating new proposals, I will briefly indicate below what the perspective of each of them is and some of their most relevant proposals. I hope that this procedure will clarify the point of view and objectives of my own essay. Although I am focusing on the most recent research, I would also like to mention one earlier contribution due to its importance. Michael Dyson is a sociology professor at Georgetown University in the United States. After a childhood on the streets and being ordained a Baptist pastor while still very young, he received a doctorate from Princeton and combines university life with an active participation in the media. He has written more than twenty books on the politics and culture of the United States from the point of view of black activism. He has received several literary awards, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naap) Award (twice), the American Book Award and the Southern Book Prize. On 31 August 2018, he gave a short speech at the long and emotional funeral of Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul.

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Chapter 1

In 2006, Michael Dyson wrote a volume on pride for a series on the seven deadly sins published by Oxford University Press. Its main themes are black pride and national pride, but it also includes a chapter on the theological and philosophical history of this emotion, and another very emotional one on his own upbringing, education and career. After a few allusions to previous concepts, Dyson focuses on the two greatest theologians: Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. According to his presentation, the Christian conception of pride as the worst of the deadly sins, the mother and source of the others, has been particularly determined by Saint Augustine. Dyson discusses the way in which Saint Augustine understands the role of pride in original sin, and what he calls the Augustinian paradox: humility, the cure for pride, is the path towards true exaltation. He also points to the characterizations of pride as the disordered desire to be exalted and as contempt for God (p. 12). With respect to philosophical tradition, Dyson briefly mentions Greek húbris and Aristotelian magnanimity. This historical review offers some guidance, but as I shall try to show, a more detailed use of the sources (missing in Dyson) allows for not only a richer treatment, but also to find theses and nuances that are perhaps unexpected, which question some received ideas and are difficult to anticipate in a summary examination. Dyson’s autobiographical chapter is extraordinary. It covers his sentimental and intellectual education and is filled with the love and gratitude he feels towards his teachers and books. He presents the evolution of the emotion or sense of pride of the adolescent black and the role of authors such as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. He makes use of an emotional musical metaphor when he tells us how he ‘slept with Baldwin’s essays like Coltrane slept with his horn, fingering in my own imagination the notes the writer played and charting the progression of chords in his symphonic meditation on the American soul’ (p. 36–​37). And a little further on he concludes his reflection on action and literature with the desire, in his own words, ‘to sing of suffering and struggle with pitiless precision’. Beyond the personal sphere, Dyson also explains the black and white identity politics, the white pride of some negroes (‘white water is wetter’) and the public role of many black personalities in his country, such as politicians, actors and artists. Finally, he bases his reflection on national pride on a distinction which is conventional, but none the less accurate, between patriotism and nationalism, to which we will return in the final chapters. I will now deal with the three monographs which appeared in 2016. Jessica Tracy is a professor of psychology and director of the Emotion and Self Lab at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). She was awarded the James McKeen Cattell prize of the Academy of Sciences of New York and the

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Outstanding Early Career Award from the International Society for Self and Identity. Her innovative research on the science of pride has been published in the main psychological journals and has been the subject of attention in hundreds of media outlets, including abc’s Good Morning America, npr’s All Things Considered, The New York Times, The Economist and Scientific American. In 2016, she published the book Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success. The treatment of pride achieves a truly scientific status in the research of Tracy and her school. Her book constitutes a compendium and a recapitulation of nearly two decades of empirical psychological research. Her wish not to lose the link with tradition leads the author to include the sinfulness of pride in the subtitle of her book. However, she does not show great patience with respect to theological and philosophical arguments, barely dedicating one page to them; and as it is difficult to argue closely in such as small space, considers all of them simply confusing and pre-​scientific. According to Tracy, the psychological science of pride, which arrived with the new century and which applies for this purpose the tools of the positive sciences, has allowed traditional confusions to be resolved. Jessica Tracy also offers brief linguistic considerations and complains that despite the many different turns of phrase available in the English language to qualify pride, its essential duality is not included in two terms, but rather is hidden in only one: pride. The author recognises that French and Italian have better luck, but consoles herself, incomprehensibly, with attributing to the Spanish language the same deficiency as English of having only one term. I would like to highlight three of Tracy’s contributions on duality, functionality and motivation. Tracy and her collaborators have forged terms for the duality of pride (authentic pride and hubristic pride) which have been taken up widely in the psychology of pride. In her book, Tracy illustrates this distinction by way of a sustained comparison between the serene pride of Barack Obama and the foolish hubristic pride of Donald Trump. Tracy and her team do not limit themselves to include received intuitions; in scientific psychology, both the authors who support the distinction and those who criticise it base their arguments on quantitative experiments. Arguing against constructivist persuasions, Tracy and her disciples also say that these two forms of pride have been fixed in our species for functional and evolutionary reasons. They have also demonstrated a certain universality in the bodily expressions of pride through observations in California, Italy and Burkina Faso: head slightly tilted back, a chest expanded, arms extended. One of her main theses, which she argues in different ways throughout the book, refers to the motivational force of pride for human life: ‘One conclusion

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Chapter 1

I’ve reached is that the desire to feel pride is one of the most important motivational forces propelling human achievement, creation, and innovation, and, as a result, all cultural inventions, from art and architecture to science, math, and philosophy. Yes, pride is at least partly responsible for many of our species’ greatest successes, including artistic masterpieces, groundbreaking scientific discoveries, and world-​changing technological inventions’ (Chap. 1, p. 14). In my opinion, and without doubting the empirical results, the idea of ‘the desire to feel pride’ which Tracy insists on repeatedly, contains a conceptual error, since pride, like happiness or goodness, cannot be a direct object of will and action, but only an indirect result. I will return to this later on. The second of the three works is by Shawn Tucker, a professor of fine arts at Elon University, North Carolina, United States. He spent two years in Chile as a Mormon missionary, received a doctorate from Florida State University in 1997 and has taught humanities, history of art and Spanish in Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. He has published two academic works: The Virtues and Vices in the Arts: A Sourcebook (2015) and Pride and Humility: A New Interdisciplinary Analysis (2016), which is the work that interests us here. Tucker’s book focuses on the relationship between pride and humility. His basic proposal, which he argues rigorously, is a conception of humility as a commitment, and pride as the confidence that comes from it. Tucker considers commitment, dedication or devotion to all kinds of things, persons and values, and based on this he talks about the duality and variations of pride. For this, he highlights four different elements: estimations of oneself, power, concepts of connection and interaction, and fear. Tucker illustrates his proposals, perhaps a shade too extensively, with numerous characters and episodes from literary works, like King Lear, The Color Purple, The Divine Comedy, the Iliad and Invisible Man. He also refers to Aristotle and Machiavelli. Although the subject may have suggested it, in his long analyses on the relationship between pride and humility, he does not touch on its religious history, but always sticks to the moral ground. There is only one simple and conventional summary of the sin of pride and Christian humility, based on C. S. Lewis. However, about possible objects of commitment and submission, both religious and social, he offers a vigorous exposition of the ideas of Martin Buber and Martin Luther King. In contrast, Tucker does consider elements from the history of Greece to be important: the Homeric heroes, húbris and Aristotelian magnanimity. Tucker’s work allows us to supplement the reflection on the duality of pride with a profound reflection on the duality of humility. But I am not going into detail on this and will limit myself to comments on three points. First, unlike

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13

the other works I am reviewing, Tucker does not limit himself to repeat current ideas on Greek húbris. He goes back precisely to its original meaning of insult, brutality, wanton violence, and always takes it into account. Second, in my opinion, the presentation of Aristotelian magnanimity is profoundly mistaken and unfair. Tucker attributes to it arrogance, self-​sufficiency, obsession with honours, comparison and disdain for others. He uses it repeatedly as the embodiment of a perverse aristocracy and the worst of the prides. He classifies the ideal of magnanimity as a dangerous illusion and issues the following summary judgement: ‘Aristotle’s man lives above others, aloof from them, their views, ideas, pains, fears, or concerns. Complete and self-​sufficient, he has no need for others or for wonder. Other people […] are just so many machines to be used and manipulated. Aristotle’s “great-​souled man” is essentially his own deity, the object of his own worship. It is not surprising then when we find that such a person’s “enthusiasm” turns out to mean that he is really simply full of himself’ (p. 115). I cannot accept this judgement at all. Each person is as he is; and as far as I am concerned, if you pick a fight with Aristotle, it is like picking a fight with my father. A careful examination of this venerable figure allows us to offer a completely different vision. One of the main aims of my review of Greece will be to lay the foundations for this vision. For this, it is necessary to view it in the light of previous history, examine with care and respect the pride of the Homeric heroes, the gradual and difficult democratization of pride, the beautiful connection between the wartime virtues and moral virtues and the illuminating Aristotelian conception of intellectual and ethical qualities, character and happiness. In my essay, I offer a short review of this Greek history of the mentalities and education of individuals, which culminates in the Aristotelian ideal. Later on, I intend to complete this backdrop with an analysis of magnanimity and humility in the move from the mediaeval world to the modern world. And third, in his reflection on duality and various forms of humility, Tucker offers an essential distinction for our subject between to humble and to humiliate, being humbled and being humiliated, humbling experience and humiliating experience (p. 165–​168). Incredible as it might seem, Spanish lacks verbal forms to express this distinction, so speakers of the language have to devise ways of expressing through circumlocutions the difference between the beautiful experience of transformation in humility and the completely different phenomenon of humiliation, vile and nasty for both its subject and object. It appears that the Spanish spirit is rich in distinguishing prides, but poor in distinguishing humilities. Our language only allows us to say that the awareness of this lack is humiliating, but eidetic intelligence—​and the assistance

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Chapter 1

of the English language, of course—​allows us to go further than this, and invites us to recognise that it is rather a case of a different experience, a beautiful experience, but one that is without a name. We would have to force the Spanish language to point to this new eídos through new terms such as humildante (humbling) or experiencia humildante (humbling experience). In the phenomenological chapter, I will try to make some theoretical use of this distinction between linguistic analysis and eidetic analysis. As can be understood, and despite all the analytical excitement, there is no conceptual analysis as such: one has to decide on the former or the latter. The third and last book is by Ulrich Steinvorth, a German political philosopher who held important positions in several universities in his country until his retirement in 2006 as a professor in Hamburg. His early works belong to the analytical tradition. In them he deals, for example, with Marxist dialectic, modern theories of freedom and distributive justice. But subsequently he has also made significant contributions to metaphysics and moral philosophy, such as the comparison between ancient and modern ethics, secularisation and the Western concept of self. The work that interests us here is Pride and Authenticity, which he published in English in 2016. Steinvorth does not take his historical interest back to Greece, like Tucker, but to theological history, above all Saint Augustine. He attributes to this father of the Church the awareness of reason and freedom and the canonical interpretation of original sin. In my opinion, his references to Augustine are interesting, but a little generic. But the basic problem is the lack of the main source for the theological understanding of pride. As I will try to show, the thought of Aquinas offers the complexity and wealth needed to deal properly with the pride of the angel and that of human beings, and allows us to calibrate the limitations of the Augustinian proposals. To do this, a certain care will be required. As with the other authors cited, Steinvorth does not deal with the distinction between pride as emotion and character. It is true that one of the first chapters does briefly refer to the psychological context in which this distinction is contained (Chap. 2). It refers to contemporary theories of emotions and enumerates the necessary aspects for their philosophical treatment: 1. The distinction between feelings, emotions and moods. I will simply point here out that the first two terms are not used in quite the same way in English and Spanish, as ‘feeling’ is used also for what are termed sensaciones (sensations) in Spanish; sentimientos is a more natural term for emotions than emociones. 2. The intentional nature (direction to an object) of the sub-​group of more intellectual feelings or emotions, if we wish to call them that, among which is pride.

The Duality of Pride

3. 4.

15

The I or self as an object to which this emotion is directed. The possibility that the emotion also gives rise to a disposition. But he limits the latter to a tendency to emotion, without noting either the character or the disposition to action. I would also like to refer to the three theses with which Steinvorth sums up the proposals of his book. The author himself recognises the unsystematic and unstructured nature of his essay. Perhaps I could add that there are long digressions that do not really appear to be motivated by the central issue. Nevertheless, it is worth considering the initial formulation of these three theses, which state interesting ideas (Chap. 1). First, rather than an awareness of the past, pride would involve a promise for the future, a determination of authenticity. I will refer to this point when I look at the variation between emotion and appetite, which was already embodied terminologically in the analysis of Aquinas. Second, Steinvorth conceives of pride as authenticity, the desire for authenticity or loyalty to oneself. To do so, he discusses the distinction between instrumental ends and ends in themselves. With this he suggests, without opening up completely, axiological language and its field, which are part of pride of any importance. Third, the author considers that contemporary pride necessarily extends its object to a new dimension of social commitment and justice. It is an essential phenomenon, to which we will return later. In my opinion, Steinvorth states it with good sense, but does not examine it precisely. He also argues beautifully that pride ‘cannot tolerate an absurd world either, a world without meaning’ (p. 5). I have tried to highlight the specificity and some basic ideas from each of the above monographs. In my own essay, I will have the opportunity to refer to them again. What interests me now is to note two basic areas of agreement. First, all these studies on pride begin by noting its dual nature. It is true that they do not distinguish the two psychological faces of pride—​emotion and character—​which we have identified, but stick to the former. But all these studies highlight from the start the contrast between good pride and bad pride, noble pride and overweening pride or hubris, and they do keep pointing to the traditional identification of the latter as the most serious of the deadly sins. In fact, either implicitly or explicitly, this ambiguity appears to motivate much of the attraction which pride has exercised on these researchers and has led them to dedicate these works to it. Jessica Tracy carries this fascination to her book’s subtitle, by way of provocation. And both she and Michael Dyson include it with expressive oxymorons in the headings of two chapters. Dyson as a question: ‘The Virtuous Vice? Philosophical and Religious Roots of Pride’; and Tracy in the categorical formula ‘A Virtuous Sin’.

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Second, in all these studies there is a clear need to deal to some extent with the history and nature of pride as a sin, in order to give greater weight to the contemporary treatment. As I have pointed out, none of these works has as its principal or secondary aim the analysis of the sin of pride or hubris, nor a great interest in a historical survey; all four adopt a decidedly contemporary outlook with different basic interests: race, personality, virtue and authenticity. But curiously, despite not having a specific interest either in sin or history, these works share the idea that, however rich the perspective adopted may be, pride does not allow itself to be treated as an emotion without history. That is the reason for the references, above all in the initial chapters of the essays, to Greek heroes, Aristotelian magnanimity, the angel’s rebellion, original sin and Christian humility. Now, as I have tried to point out already, although these references are not without interest, my humble opinion is that in these works the historical details are insufficient. Their results are at times incorrect, and contrary to their aim: they do not really enrich their own perspective. My book lacks the energy of these essays, but tries to offer a complementary perspective, although in the end it probably suffers from the contrary defect. It is good to be as critical with oneself as with others, and it should be recognised that perhaps I have bitten off more than I can chew. Here we can follow the great philosopher and librarian G. W. Leibniz, who did not despise any book, because he knew how to find something valuable in each. In my work, the careful study of historical themes perhaps allows me to submerge myself in them, but at the cost of losing the perspective of the whole. Perhaps you can’t see the wood for the trees. It is true that along the way I try to offer some theses and interpretations, but the link between these episodes with contemporary philosophical analysis is not as successful as it could be. The digressions and historical skirmishes will only appear justified to those who are entertained by them in themselves and who do not wish to see them exclusively at the service of the dissertation on pride. In my defence, I will say that the content of my book is much more detailed. The precision of some headings (‘From myth to logos’, ‘Philosophy and poetry’) and the highly topical nature of others (‘The myth of Prometheus’, ‘The creation of the angels’) allow readers not only to find their bearings correctly, but also to focus on some issues and skip others, without missing much. 3

History and Philosophy

The first two chapters consist of a short overview of the history of classical Greece. This provides an initial vision of the great diversity of objects which

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can motivate our feelings and perhaps allow us to glimpse that ancient and modern languages cover concepts and values that history has only illuminated very slowly, and occasionally in very traumatic ways. Aristocratic pride in one’s blood and knowledge are well-​known. The pride of Homeric heroes, the first historical form we are going to find, offers a curious relationship with varieties that tend to be considered more typical of the contemporary world, like collective pride—​in this case of a class—​, corporate pride and sporting pride. And the intellectual pride of the two greatest philosophers (Plato and Aristotle) is manifested in two emblematic places: the government of the philosopher-​kings and the moral ideal of magnanimity. To sample these forms of pride, Tucker’s proposal on pride as confidence arising from the humility of commitment and devotion will be of great help. Also to be noted in both cases are both the axiological roots of knowledge and the direction they take: political praxis and moral praxis. Furthermore, there is also a famous, specifically Greek form—​húbris—​whose interpretation, as I have already insinuated, would have to be qualified. Perhaps it is less well-​known that in Greece other very different types of pride also appear, which also represent an anticipation of some which we consider to be contemporaneous: democratic pride and popular pride. The latter appears in the form of peasant pride. But what we can highlight historically with two words is the result of complex processes and gradual transformations. That is why it is advisable to take a brief look both at the history of the facts and of the mentalities, the history of Greek democracy and sophist thought. In the next two chapters, we move to another world: the fundamental sources of pride and hubris as a sin in the Jewish and Christian religions. The study of pride is inconceivable without the theological dimension. This is clear from all the recent monographs to which I have referred in the previous section. But as I have also noted, a correct treatment of these sources and this dimension of pride requires a diligence and attention to detail absent in these studies, which have other interests. The sin of the angel and the sin of the human are sins of pride. But pride comes in various forms, which are not evident, and a certain care is required to distinguish them adequately. The nature of angelic sin and human sin is the subject of controversy, both inside and outside the Christian tradition. My proposals are based on a specific use of theological and literary sources in a firm commitment to analysis and the theses of Thomas Aquinas. It is in his thought that I have found the firmest and most profound guide for both the understanding of hubris and for the comprehension of angelic sin and human sin. His conceptual proposal is to characterise pride as ‘disordered appetite for one’s own excellence’, which agrees with the linguistic definitions of pride we

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have seen above, with the new added element of disorder, on which we will have to concentrate later. Based on this characterisation, Aquinas establishes an essential difference between moral hubris and spiritual hubris, which will lead him to his magisterial interpretation of the aforementioned sins. In my understanding, in the case of the original sin of human beings, the Thomist interpretation is surprising and much more incisive than that of other famous theological and philosophical readings by which it was long obscured and which it contradicts. And pride and humility are determinant in the history of the Hebrew people. The two decisive factors are the relationship with God and earthly power. In my opinion, without carrying out all this historical survey it would be difficult to deal with the religious component involved in pride in our culture. Neither would it be possible to encompass the rich vein offered by another fundamental figure in the history of pride: Doctor Faustus. To lay the foundations for a proposal on the nature of Faustian hubris, I will first have to tackle a basic question: the unity and plurality of the different Faustuses. And to be able to prepare and formulate a precise thesis about Faustian hubris, I will make use of the forms of pride and hubris set out in the previous chapters, without which I do not believe the Faustian version can be tackled. The approach of the second part of the book is, in principle, more philosophical or analytical, although historical research and conceptual research will always overlap to some extent. It is not possible to go into depth in the understanding of contemporary affectivity without an idea of its history, which is particularly necessary in the case of pride, given its wealth and ambiguity. In modern life, we can recognise both the operation and effects of the historical antecedents as new approaches. First, we will study the inflection introduced by some modern philosophers by relating pride with the feeling of dignity. I noted above that this relation is included in French, although as an old meaning. I will examine the movement from the mediaeval to modern vision, contrasting the different conceptions of the passions of the soul, magnanimity and humility. I will use the contrast between the two forms of understanding passions, exemplified in Thomas Aquinas and Descartes, to carry out a conceptual analysis about the psychological pattern in which the emotion of pride and the proud or overweening character can be placed. This conceptual research will demonstrate the relevance of the linguistic approach with which I began, but also suggest new details. The indications on pride of the modern philosophers Descartes, Spinoza and Hume clearly introduce some initial conceptual variations about related elements, through which its emotional nature is accompanied and enriched by elements of cognition and appetite.

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Pride and humility are also determinant in original Christianity. To examine Christian humility, we will await the arrival of an exceptional guest. The Nietzschean interpretation of Christian morality will allow us to recover the Greek heroes and other ancient heroes. I will try to set out with some precision the Nietzschean idea of the transvaluation of values and his interpretation of Christian humility from the perspective of resentment, as well as offering an alternative interpretation. In this way, I hope to create a context for the singularity of a completely new kind of love and pride: those of the great Zarathustra, the atheist. Next, I will tackle fully the most relevant contemporary phenomenon with respect to the illustrious ancestry of aristocratic pride: the generalisation of popular pride. The core idea around which contemporary understanding of pride pivots is equality. My approach will be supported by the contrast between the aristocratism of Ortega and the democratism of Machado. In this way, the complementarity between the philosophical approach and literary recreation will be renewed in a very distinct context, which is so fruitful in the case of Judaeo-​Christian prehistory. At this point, I will offer a thesis on the similarities and differences between the feeling of resentment, correctly analysed by Nietzsche, and what I call, following Ortega, the feeling of mass pride. The treatment of some paradigmatic forms of collective contemporary pride will require the transfer of the pride of equality to the prides of identity and difference. The analysis of some specific cases, such as black pride, lgbtiq+​ pride and national pride, aims to be illustrative of other similar cases. After some brief indications on the most important sciences affecting pride (psychology and pedagogy), I will undertake its analysis from an inherently philosophical perspective, through the technical tools of the phenomenology of feelings and emotions. First, I try to show that the formulas, so closely related, which we have found in ordinary language—​the feeling of self-​value—​and mediaeval conceptual analysis—​disordered appetite for one’s own excellence—​may serve as a starting and meeting point for a great diversity of linguistic, historical and philosophical approaches. Maybe somewhat pompously, I call this logical unit the essence of pride, but I am quick to add that this essence is nothing without its historical and conceptual variants. Finally, I present some tentative considerations on the morality and pride or post-​pride of the post-​human supermen and my thesis on the transvaluation of pride, which are supported by a sustained comparison between conceptual analysis and musical analysis.

pa rt 1 The History of Pride

∵

­c hapter 2

Gods, Heroes and Men 1

The Warrior Aristocracy

Pride is the emotion which accompanies estimation or affirmation of the self, the awareness of the self as valuable. Pride is an emotional correlate of this self-​affirmation. It provides energy and strength and can accompany judgements and valuations of very different kinds. In the first two historical chapters, we are going to look at different models of individual and political community from Ancient Greece, because of its recurring impact on the history of ideas and thought in the Western world. I will mention other cultures at times, because comparisons and parallelisms are illustrative. However, Greece will be the initial model for the pride or prides of aristocrats and democrats, as it is a world of great importance in our culture—​and because in his passage through Hell, Dante subtly identifies the terms Greek and proud (Inferno 26, 73–​75). The intellectual and spiritual history of Greece can be viewed from the perspective of its distinct ideas about the education and upbringing of individuals. This is what the great philologist Werner Jaeger does in his monumental Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, which I will use as a basis and from which I will take a great deal of information. Political and intellectual history is accompanied by a succession of models of the individual and his place in the community. Intellectual history is the outcome of political history, but the emergence of new intellectual and spiritual forms does not necessarily imply the disappearance of previous ones; very often the old is superseded by the assimilation of new models. The old, more or less transformed, remains in earlier strata of consciousness and may reappear at any time in an unexpected way. As Jaeger demonstrates, what is new is not only different, but also more complex, due to the accumulation and integration of what has gone before. The wounded pride of Achilles motivated his anger and the song of the goddess. The hero’s pride is the awareness of his excellence and is wounded when he does not receive explicit, emphatic and unanimous recognition that he is the best. The awareness of the Homeric hero is public and crystal clear, so his merit and his recognition must be perfectly harmonious. Once Achilles dies, his armour should have been passed on to Ajax, son of Telamon, as he was the best. But Ulysses won out and Ajax descended into madness and suicide. In Hades, Ajax is no more than a shadow; but a shadow with awareness, proud and wounded, who turns his back on the friendly gesture of his rival.

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_004

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Chapter 2

The pride of the Homeric heroes is that of all ancient aristocracies, whether human or mythological. As Nietzsche points out, the value put on strength and warrior excellence is inherent to Greek, Roman, Arab, Germanic, Japanese and Viking aristocracies. The noble man and the warrior have an awareness of their excellence and feel a profound pride and a strong desire to be honoured for it. In Ancient Greece, there is a nice connection between archaic warrior excellence and classical intellectual excellence. The notions of virtue (ἀρετή) and education (παιδεία) undergo a transformation and an enrichment from the world of the heroes to that of men, culminating in the great models of philosophical education and training. Despite these transformations, echoes of the warrior ideals of virtue, nobility and aristocratic beauty persist within philosophical ideals. The notion of virtue or excellence is essential in the intellectual history of Greece, whose ‘educator’, Homer, is fond of eulogies and he extols with admiration the virtues of everything around him, such as roses and horses. He is the first pillar of the Greek trinity of poet, politician and philosopher, in the happy expression of Jaeger who provides us with the means to put some order into the history of Greek pride. But the most sublime excellence is that of men; and, in the Homeric world, the highest is the military and warrior excellence of the kings and nobles. Warrior virtues are harsh and include strength and an ability to lead. The prize is honour and recognition by one’s peers. Excellence is individual, but also of class. The aristocracy of blood is aware of this and lives it not only with an emotion of pride, but also with a great sense of duty. In Homer, the real mark of the nobleman is his sense of duty. He is judged, and is proud to be judged, by a severe standard. And the nobleman educates others by presenting to them an eternal ideal, to which they have a duty to conform. His sense of duty is aidos (respect). Anyone is free to appeal to aidos; and if it is slighted the slight awakes in others the kindred emotion of nemesis (indignation). Both aidos and nemesis are essential parts of Homer’s ideal of aristocracy. The nobleman’s pride (Adelstolz) in high race and ancient achievement is partnered by his knowledge that his pre-​eminence can be guaranteed only by the virtues which won it. The aristoi (the best) are distinguished by that name from the mass of the common people: and though there are many aristoi, they are always striving with one another for the prize of areté. jaeger 1933-​47: original page 28 /​translation page 7

A powerful term to describe the excellence of heroes is καλοκαγαθοί. This compound word is formed by καλός (beautiful) and ἀγαθός (good), and denotes the

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pinnacle of excellence. Homer applies it to the heroes, but it would later be applied to other forms of excellence. Particularly illustrative is the use made of it by Aristotle when he deals with the virtues of intelligence and character. Despite the centuries separating Homer and Aristotle, the use of the term resounds with its aristocratic echoes. The notion of areté is also linked to that of the aristoí (from where we get the word aristocracy, the rule of the best). In the legendary world of Homer, which was always present in the Greek imaginary, the main virtue is the warlike excellence of the nobles. The Latin idea of virtus and Renaissance virtù come from the same source to some extent. In the history of Greece, the notion of areté accompanied political and intellectual events and was transformed with them. These transformations culminated in the controversies between the sophists and philosophers about the nature of virtue and the possibility of teaching it. I will have to refer to the ideas of the sophists on political virtues and the attempts of philosophers to appropriate the notion in trying to revive its aristocratic background. Naturally, what interests us is not to cover this history exhaustively, but to identify, with good judgement, if possible, certain relevant markers on the way for the history of pride and value. In order to perceive from the start the need for this historical review and the connection between the forms of Greek pride and their contemporary versions, I would like to point to a place where (perhaps unexpectedly) the Homeric mentality reappears in our world with perfect clarity. The public nature of the conscience of the Homeric hero is absolute, according to Jaeger. It is the reason for his thirst for honour and his indignation when he is not awarded the highest recognition for his merits. The parallel phenomenon of our time is undoubtedly the public conscience of the corporate hero. That is the reason why the hierarchy and excellence of company cars must precisely reflect the executive’s position in the organisational chart. This correspondence is facilitated enormously by the numbered sequences of German brands, such as Audi a1, a2, a3, bmw x1, x3, x5; but it is clear in any case to those in the know. There is always an Achilles at the wheel of an x5, while in an x1 it is not rare to find an Ajax, with his pride wounded at the sight of a suave Odysseus washing the company’s x3 in full view of everyone. 2

The Olympic Games

The excellence and pride of the Homeric heroes also has another dimension. Heroes also play. In play, the ancient heroes exhibited a freshness and innocence which will provide an element of essential contrast when we will be

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dealing with contemporary collective pride and sport as a mass phenomenon, that corporeal epidemic. In the absence of news on the athletic games of the gods on the summit of Mount Olympus, we can recall the athletic games of the heroes on the beaches of Troy, the ‘superb’ Ilium. Once Patroclus’s body was consumed in the funeral pyre, together with the oxen, lambs, dogs, bronzes, honeys and the bodies of twelve young Trojans whose throats were cut by Achilles, the funeral games in honour of his dead friend began. Achilles organised everything for the glory of his great companion but did not take part himself. The first competition was the chariot race. Achilles knew that any other time his immortal horses would have won, but now—​like he—​they were crying for Patroclus. Achilles had five prizes available, and five heroes presented themselves for the competition: Eumelus, a master of the chariot race; Diomedes, with the horses he took from Aeneas; Menelaus, with his own horse and his brother’s mare Aithe; Nestor’s son, Antilochus; and finally, Meriones. Horses and charioteers set off fast. As they rounded the turning-​post and returned to the coast, Eumelus’ mares were in the lead, but Diomedes was close behind. Then Apollo made Diomedes’s whip fall out of his hand, and he was left behind. However, Athena returned it to him and in reprisal broke Eumelus’ yoke, which fell to the ground with his mares. Diomedes reached the finishing post first and took the woman and cauldron as his prize. Next came Antilochus, after a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre, for which Menelaus protested strongly, finishing third. Then came Meriones and finally Eumelus, pulling his chariot himself and driving his mares over the line. Achilles felt sorry for Eumelus, who was the best charioteer but came in last by accident, and proposed he be given the second prize, a pregnant mare. Antilochus protested strongly at this and did not want to give her up. Achilles then gave a different prize to Eumelus, the splendid breastplate he took from Asteropaius. Menelaus, in turn, lodged a complaint for the behaviour of Antilochus, who ended up admitting his youthful recklessness and ardour and said he was prepared to give up his second place. But then Menelaus in turn recognised Antilochus’s courtesy, recalling the sufferings borne by him, his brother and father in the war because of his wife Helen; he therefore announced himself content with the third prize, a splendid cauldron. Meriones won the fourth prize of two talents of gold, and Achilles gave Nestor unclaimed the fifth prize, a two-​handled urn, because he was unable to compete due to his age. Then there was a boxing competition, in which Epeius broke the bones of Euryalus, who once won a competition with his fists at the funeral ceremony of Oedipus of Thebes. Epeius took away a mule and Euryalus a cup. The first prize for wrestling was a great tripod, valued at twelve oxen, and the second a woman

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27

skilled in all manner of work, valued at four oxen. But, after a long and emotional fight between Ulysses and Ajax, the son of Telamon, the greatest heroes after Achilles, the latter declared a draw and divided the prizes between them equally. The prizes for the foot-​race were a silver bowl, an ox and half a talent of gold. The competitors were Ajax son of Oileus, Ulysses and Antilochus. In the last stretch of the race, Ajax was in the lead with Ulysses second. Odysseus prayed to Athena, who made Ajax slip in some ox dung. Odysseus came first, Ajax second and Antilochus third. Ajax protested the intervention of the goddess, and the public was greatly amused. Antilochus complained about the help granted to the older men, particularly Odysseus, with whom no o​ ne could compete, except for Achilles. Achilles himself thanked him for the compliment and doubled his prize. Finally, there was armed combat, shot put, archery and javelin, all with various attractive prizes. What was most significant was that Achilles interrupted the armed combat and named a winner due to his alarm at a possible accident; that Teucer missed his shot with the bow as he forgot to pray and make a promise to Apollo; and that Achilles gave the first prize for the javelin to Agamemnon, without the need to hold a competition, as his superiority was acknowledged in advance. An examination of the ancient athletic games helps us to look at the modern games in a different way. The ancient games were joyous, self-​assured and flexible in a way entirely absent from the monotonous modern games. It is extremely boring that the prizes of the modern Olympics are always the same: gold, silver, bronze. In the ancient games, the prizes could be very different: oxen, mares, gold, cauldrons, cups. And there were as many prizes as competitors in each event. It is cruel that today so many aspiring heroes are left without prizes. Achilles felt sorry that Eumelus came last, even though he was the best, and proposed giving him the second prize. And given that Odysseus and Ajax had a very similar record and merits, Achilles interrupted the combat and divided the prizes. The modern games are zero-​sum: the winners win what the losers lose; the ancient games were not. They were truly playful; the man who came fifth could receive a newly created second place and the first two could divide the glory, without impacting in any way the excellence or pride of any of the heroes. The modern games are mechanical and mean-​spirited, while the ancient games were splendid and arbitrary. If a goddess made a hero slip in ox dung, the other ancient heroes laughed, while modern heroes lodge complaints at the courts of arbitration. And if a demigod is considered superior in advance, as was Agamemnon with the javelin, or Rafael Nadal in tennis, why hold the competition? The modern athletic games have lost all their innocence. The

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competitors don’t pray to Apollo. They don’t compete for cauldrons, cups or oxen, but for money. They are games without any playful character. When have you seen two sportsmen politely grant each other second and third place in a competition, as the heroes Antilochus and Menelaus once did? And to top it all, now they don’t give any prizes to those of us who can’t compete for reasons of age. In the contemporary world, the first dimension of Homeric heroes is the most common: I mean the corporate dimension, which corresponds to a rather infantile phase of consciousness, both from the phylogenetic and ontogenetic point of view. But the second, sporting dimension is not completely absent. And there is no better demonstration of it than in the recent Spanish film Champions (2018). The explosion of joy of Javier Fesser’s heroes when they come second in the basketball tournament is only comparable with the courtesy of the Homeric heroes when they give up their first places and show their mirth at the arbitrary interventions of the gods. In the film, a champion says that his girlfriend is really proud. Another tells him that she is a slag. And the first admits that she is a slag but insists that she is very proud. 3

The Panegyric of Democracy

In his narrative of the Peloponnesian War, the historian Thucydides recreates the speech given by the general Pericles in 431 B.C. in honour of the victims of the first year of the war between Athens and Sparta (ii, 35–​46). The memorial to the fallen is accompanied by a passionate discourse in praise of Athenian democracy. The funeral oration of Pericles is an eloquent self-​affirmation of Athenian democracy compared with other cities and other forms of government. Thucydides wrote it a number of years after Pericles gave his speech, when Athens had already been defeated by Sparta, so the panegyric of democracy is a paean in favour of a model that in fact was already in the past. The first thing that attracts our attention is the characterisation of democracy offered by Pericles. It is a good example of the conceptual importance that philological precision often has. Attention to linguistic details and discrepancies between the received versions of the texts makes it difficult at times to read and understand. But at other times, these details give rise to questions that are essential to our understanding and neglecting them results in a picture painted with a very broad brush. It is the recurring clash between seeing the wood and seeing the trees. In the case of Pericles’s funeral oration, the discrepancy lies in whether he characterises democracy as the form of government in which the administration ‘is exercised in favour of the majority and

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not of the few’ or whether it ‘lies in the hands of the majority and not of a few’. It appears that the former is the original sense, and the latter is the result of the replacement of one word (oikeîn) by another (hékein) in some mediaeval manuscripts (Thucydides, ed. Arbea: 4). This small discrepancy leads to a very significant difference in meaning. At any event, in this foundational manifesto of democratic pride Pericles proposes ‘to discuss the spirit in which we faced our trials and also our constitution and the way of life which has made us great’ (ii, 36). Unlike the states that imitate the constitutions and the laws of others, such as Dorian Crete, which imitated Sparta, Athens is a model for others. In explaining the laws and customs of which this model consists, Pericles compares them to those of other communities, in particular those of its great rival Sparta. In Pericles’s opinion, in Athens all men enjoy equal rights before the law, and public office is available by one’s own merits and not social category. The freedom of all is respected, in both public and private affairs. In private matters, there may be more interference, as in public affairs Athenians are proud of completely respecting those who hold positions of power. And they not only comply with the laws proclaimed, in particular those that aim to protect victims from injustice, but also the unwritten laws, which everyone considers a disgrace to infringe. But, as well as the law, Pericles notes the strength and excellence of Athens in the public attention given to leisure and festivals, art and beauty. According to the great strategist, the spiritual greatness of Athens also feeds its superiority in war against peoples who have traditionally thrown themselves into military discipline. It is worth noting that the critics of democracy offer a very different view, considering that the democratic regime was always subject to demagogy and irrationality, and even responsible in the final instance for the military defeat. The political reflection of the great later philosophers, above all Plato, must be seen as a continuation of controversies about the successes and failures of Athenian democracy (Calvo 1995: 43). But for our interests, the funeral oration of Pericles is a paradigmatic episode of self-​affirmation and ancient democratic pride, which we will now relate to the thought of the sophists. The Athenian democracy as praised by Pericles is not the first in the history of Greece in which the law, state and freedom flourished. But it was its culminating point; in it were interconnected in a special way the value of law (as demonstrated by Hesiod), the transformation of the old warrior virtues at the service not of clans but of the state (particularly successful in Sparta) and the awareness of the political community as a new organism which saw the light in the Ionian cities. The capital of Attica in the 5th Century B.C. not only included and integrated all these elements, but offered the most sustained

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public reflections on relations between the individual and community; first, in tragedy and sophistry, and then in philosophy. With its oscillations between tyranny and democracy, Athens saw the culmination of the transformation process of the areté of epic into political areté, and that of the ethics of the nobility into the ethics of the state. The basic political institutions of Greek cities were the assembly, the council and the magistrates. These institutions originated in the ancient tribal monarchies, in which the king was surrounded by a council of nobles and they communicated and justified decisions before the assembly of the army, which was the people in arms. Over time, the struggles for power led to the distribution of the political, military and religious functions of the king between archons or magistrates; while positions on the council, initially hereditary, were granted to members of the assembly, in a variety of ways and through different criteria. ‘In the aristocratic systems, the council assumed a greater share of power to the detriment of the assembly. As a result, the struggle between the aristocrats and democracy turned to a great extent on the acquisition and retention of greater powers by one body or the other’ (Calvo 1995: 29–​32). There was a similar evolution in the case of Athens, in which the successive reforms of the great leaders Solon, Cleisthenes, Ephialtes and Pericles proved decisive from the start of the 6th Century to the mid-​5th Century. The profound respect of Athenians for the law, which Pericles was proud of, fundamentally came from the work of Solon. A brief list of the reforms implemented by this great statesman and legislator at the start of the 6th Century gives a clue as to the specific democratic spirit extoled by Pericles and the intellectual climate in which the sophists proclaimed and taught the new form of democratic and citizen’s excellence: political areté. Plato argued against it in retrospect, proposing a conception of political areté based on intellectual excellence. Solon abolished debts, the system of hektomorage (a payment by peasants of a sixth of their income from the land they worked to the landowners) and the enslavement of those who could no longer pay their debts. Administratively, Solon established a new census and four new social classes according to income, thus ousting the aristocracy of blood in favour of the aristocracy of money. And access to certain public positions (council, magistrates and even archons) was opened up in different ways and in successive reforms by Solon and his successors. Two criteria for selection were used by Solon: income and lot. Solon created appeal courts, whose members were appointed by lot, and a new council of four hundred members, one hundred for each one of the four new tribes into which Athens had been divided. It appears that the system of lot also played a role in the election of members of the courts and even

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the archons, following an election of forty candidates, ten per tribe. (Calvo 1995: 44–​49) The purpose of the system of lots was to counter the traditional power of the dominant families. It was a key feature of Athenian democracy and a favourite target for Plato, who insisted that it was the most capable who should govern. But it was not an exclusive election procedure. In his eulogy of democracy, what Pericles points to with a new pride in this respect, is that in Athens the positions of responsibility do not depend on family origin or social class. Pericles states that they are open to merit, such as, for example, in the preselection of candidates for the different positions by groups, or in debates and the acclamation of the winners in the assembly. The sophists taught the qualities by which people could make their mark in assemblies and other citizens’ activities. 4

The Myth of Prometheus

Prometheus was a titan, cousin of Zeus, the father of the gods and men, who stole fire from him and gave it to the mortals. In Hesiod’s poems (Theogony and Works and Days), the titan to a certain extent represents humanity, or at least shares with its sins and destinies. In the Theogony, the fixer Prometheus displays his knowledge and astuteness—​and thus insolence—​twice before the supreme god. First, he attempts to cheat Zeus, the wielder of the thunderbolt, by offering him in sacrifice the bones and fat instead of the meat of his victims. The penalty is to have fire taken away from man. Second, Prometheus steals the fire and restores it to humans. The penalty is the creation of Pandora, the first woman, and her box of all the evils and diseases in the world. In Works and Days, it is stressed that until this time human beings lived happy lives without any evil. For previously the tribes of men used to live upon the earth entirely apart from evils, and without grievous toil and distressful diseases, which give death to men […] But the woman removed the great lid from the storage jar with her hands and scattered all its contents abroad—​she wrought baneful evils for human beings. Works and Days, 90–​96

Fire symbolises knowledge and skill, which put human beings forever in an intermediate position between animals and gods. The possession of fire is a Greek version of humanisation, which in a place not very far away from them

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occurred in another way, by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ‘The version of the myth of Prometheus in Works and Days’, explains the Spanish translator A. Pérez Jiménez, ‘aims to explain why we have to work even though the universe is governed by a just and benevolent god like Zeus. It also serves as an introduction to another story—​the myth of the ages—​which illustrates the subject of injustice and its consequences in the evolution of humanity’ (p. 129, n. 12). In Aeschylus’ tragedy Prometheus Bound, the explicit reason for the conduct of Prometheus is philanthropy, the love for the ephemeral creatures of one day, whom Zeus, the amasser of clouds, wished to destroy after the titans. The tragedy tells the story, above all, of the enchainment of the astute Prometheus to the rock, while the eagle devours his liver; his discussions with Hermes, the emissary of Zeus, bearer of the aegis; and his hubristic refusal to accept the plans of Zeus. The two other lost tragedies of the trilogy may have narrated the descent of Prometheus to the underworld and a hypothetical reconciliation with Zeus, whose thunder caused the broad earth to tremble. The myth of resourceful and wise Prometheus has been recreated on a great many occasions and the figure of the titan has been the subject of a very large number of interpretations. In delivering fire to men, the humanising and enlightening fire can be seen from the perspective of either the work of the Devil or a form of redemption. Prometheus has been interpreted as Adam, Satan and Christ. For the Romantics—​Lord Byron and Shelley—​it enshrined the vision of suffering and triumphant rebel pride as a symbol of men with respect to God; while Mary Shelley narrated the anxiety of Victor Frankenstein, the new Prometheus, who wished to destroy his monstrous work (Frenzel 1976: 392–​ 395). In contemporary film, many works offer the Promethean sequence of revolution, expiation and reconciliation. And one of the most powerful symbolic presentations of the figure of Prometheus is to illustrate the irreversibility of the passage to knowledge and adulthood. By way of example, in the film Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989), ‘the appearance of the literature professor John Keating (Robin Williams) in an elite school whose traditionalism stunts the students’ independent growth, represents a real Promethean gift of the goods of poetry and philosophical thought […]. Keating’s impact, like that of so many other rebel transmitters of knowledge, remains imprinted in the memory of his disciples’ (J. Balló and Z. Pérez in Prometeo encadenado: 156). In the eponymous Platonic dialogue, the sophist Protagoras of Abdera offers his own version of the myth, with which he aims to illustrate the sophist and democratic concept of areté or political excellence and the possibility of teaching it (Protagoras, 320 c–​322 d). According to this story, after forming the mortal creatures, the gods commissioned Epimetheus, the clumsy brother of

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Prometheus, to distribute among them different faculties and qualities, so they could lead successful lives in their environment: strength, speed, wings, claws, a thick fur for the winter, etc. When it came to man, Epimetheus had used up all the possibilities. On checking his brother’s work, Prometheus found all the animals harmoniously equipped and the humans ‘naked, unshod, without protection and defenceless’. After this introduction, Protagoras takes up other versions of the myth. Prometheus goes to the workshop of Hephaestus and Athena, steals fire and knowledge of the arts (τὴν ἔντεχνον σοφίαν) from them and delivers it to humans, to allow them to preserve their lives. It is here that Pythagoras introduces the most individual element of his version of the Promethean myth and one of the most eloquent justifications of the democratic spirit. Possession of fire also symbolises humanisation and the uniqueness of human beings compared with animals and the gods. By fire, says Protagoras, man participates in part of the divine and man was the only animal which, due to this divine parentage, recognised the gods early on and then began to erect altars and images of them. Humans acquired language and, thanks to their technical knowledge, knew how to procure clothing, housing and food. However, technical knowledge was not sufficient as a defence against animals and to organise cities. Life in a community needs the communication and deliberation inherent to another type of knowledge—​political know-​how (πολιτικὴ τέχνη). And this is where the question arises on which Plato pivots a large part of the discussion between sophists and philosophers with respect to democracy: whether political know-​how is something only experts have, or do all citizens have it? Probably making use of the great sophist Protagoras’s actual ideas, Plato makes him say that the question is so important that the decision had to be made by Zeus himself, the greatest of the gods, who held within him immortal plans. Thus equipped, human beings at first lived in scattered isolation; there were no cities. They were being destroyed by wild beasts because they were weaker in every way, and although their technology was adequate to obtain food, it was deficient when it came to fighting wild animals. This was because they did not yet possess the art of politics, of which the art of war is a part. They did indeed try to band together and survive by founding cities. The outcome when they did so was that they wronged each other, because they did not possess the art of politics, and so they would scatter and again be destroyed. Zeus was afraid that our whole race might be wiped out, so he sent Hermes to bring justice and a sense of shame to humans, so that there would be order within cities and bonds of friendship to unite them. Hermes asked Zeus how he should distribute

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shame and justice to humans. ‘Should I distribute them as the other arts were? This is how the others were distributed: one person practicing the art of medicine suffices for many ordinary people; and so forth with the other practitioners. Should I establish justice and shame among humans in this way, or distribute it to all?’ ‘To all’, said Zeus, ‘and let all have a share. For cities would never come to be if only a few possessed these, as is the case with the other arts. And establish this law as coming from me: Death to him who cannot partake of shame and justice, for he is a pestilence to the city’. 322 b–​322 d

Protagoras’ version of the Prometheus myth tries to justify the possession by all the citizens of the moral feeling and sense of justice which legitimise participation in democratic life. Later on in this same Platonic dialogue, Protagoras offers another argument along the same lines, but not based on a mythological story. In the opinion of Protagoras, the political institutions and laws are not purely coercive, but presuppose that citizens may understand and interiorise them. As had already been demonstrated in the history of the Athenian democracy, but is also known in authoritarian regimes, laws have an educational dimension. Protagoras states that this dimension only makes sense if all the citizens have a sense of justice and skills from the start, to enable them to live on their own according to the laws and learn the necessary virtues to participate appropriately and successfully in democratic life. It is true that the sophists never tried to offer a general educational programme for citizens, but that their teachings were always directed at well-​to-​ do families and individuals with political ambitions. After all, Greek democracy is, as Jaeger says, a ‘social aristocracy’. But it is also true that Protagoras justifies with pride his work as an educator in the political areté of democracy with reference to these shared qualities (319 a). And Callicles, the follower of Gorgias of Leontini, another great sophist, contrasts success in assemblies, where, as the poet says, men become famous, to the shameful life of Socrates, ‘hiding, whispering in a corner with three or four boys, never uttering anything well-​bred, important, or apt’ (Gorgias, 485 d-​e). The aristocratic pride of heroes has made way for the democratic pride of the politicians.

­c hapter 3

The Pride of Philosophers 1

The Philosopher-​Kings

The controversy on political virtues and the possibility of teaching them cannot be isolated from the historical context. Pericles’ funeral oration, as recreated by Thucydides, and the story of the myth of Prometheus, which Plato attributes to Protagoras, probably correspond faithfully to the thought of Pericles and Protagoras. I have dealt with them here as an illustration of the democratic spirit, as documents that eloquently express the self-​affirmation of Athenian democracy as a political system that is distinct from others, and citizens’ participation in political life as a phenomenon unknown in other Greek and barbarian states. But Athenian democracy went through turbulent times in the second half of the 5th Century, which were of great importance for Plato’s political and anthropological thought; and in our Greek journey, it is Plato who offers a new ideal in which the aristocracy of blood or money is replaced by intellectual aristocracy. The period of the greatest Athenian political and military hegemony was under Pericles in the mid-​5th Century. It lasted until the start of the Peloponnesian War in the year 431. While the Athenian empire was run with extreme cruelty to the subject cities, in the agora of its great capital city there were heated discussions on the nature of power and justice, such as those systematised in the following century by philosophers, in particular Plato and Aristotle. In the years 411 and 404, there were oligarchical coups in Athens, but in both cases, democracy was restored a year later. Athens was finally defeated by Sparta in 404, beginning a long period of hegemony by the latter power and its allies. Socrates was condemned to death in 399, when Plato was twenty-​ nine years old. In his political philosophy, Plato stressed above all the failures and excesses of the democratic regime. His own personal political experiences and his defence of expert knowledge play a great role in his criticism of democracy. As he relates in his Seventh Letter, in his youth Plato viewed with hope the replacement in 404 of the democratic government by the oligarchy of the Thirty, in which some of his relatives took part, but he was soon convinced that the excesses of the oligarchic government were worse than those of the democracy. The restored democracy condemned his master Socrates, the best of men, to death. And Plato failed twice in his attempt to bring philosophy

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_005

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to power in the court of Dionysus, the tyrant of Syracuse. In his monumental Republic, he contrasted his detailed proposal for an ideal aristocratic state to other known political regimes: oligarchy, timarchy, democracy and tyranny. For our purposes, what particularly interests us is the criticism of democracy, which includes a parody of Pericles’s funeral oration. And I suppose that democracy comes about when the poor are victorious, killing some of their opponents and expelling others, and giving the rest an equal share in ruling under the constitution, and for the most part assigning people to positions of rule by lot. In this city, there is no requirement to rule, even if you’re capable of it, or again to be ruled if you don’t want to be, or to be at war when the others are, or at peace unless you happen to want it. And there is no requirement in the least that you not serve in public office as a juror, if you happen to want to serve, even if there is a law forbidding you to do so. Isn’t that a divine and pleasant life, while it lasts? It probably is—​while it lasts. And what about the city’s tolerance? Isn’t it so completely lacking in small-​mindedness that it utterly despises the things we took so seriously when we were founding our city, namely, that unless someone had transcendent natural gifts, he’d never become good unless he played the right games and followed a fine way of life from early childhood? Isn’t it magnificent the way it tramples all this underfoot, by giving no thought to what someone was doing before he entered public life and by honoring him if only he tells them that he wishes the majority well? Yes, it’s altogether splendid! Then these and others like them are the characteristics of democracy. And it would seem to be a pleasant constitution, which lacks rulers but not variety and which distributes a sort of equality to both equals and unequals alike. 557 a–​558c

As we have seen, Solon implemented the mechanism of selection by lot for access to certain public offices; at times, combined with other procedures, such as a pre-​selection of candidates by the four new tribes in which Athens was divided after the administrative reforms. The system of selection by lot aimed to reduce the power of the dominant families and the procedure came to be used very often in Athenian democracy. However, what made clear sense in establishing the democracy is presented by Plato as an absurd and irrational procedure. Just as no o​ ne would consider choosing a doctor to cure the sick or

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a captain to steer a ship by lot from among those present, much less should this be done with the positions of administrative and political responsibility which are decisive for the life of the community. Selection by lot is criticised based on the doctrine of skills and the defence of expert knowledge, as well as the aim of sophists to teach political qualities. In his version of the Prometheus myth, Protagoras attributes to Zeus himself the distribution between all men of moral sensitivity and the sense of justice, which legitimise their participation in the city’s democratic life. Based on comparison with the knowledge of skills, Socrates denies the possibility of teaching political qualities without a prior determination of the things that a politician must really know and the tasks that he has to carry out. In the eponymous dialogue, Protagoras begins by describing his activity as that of teaching areté or political excellence; and Socrates begins by questioning whether virtue can be taught. Socrates ends up claiming not only that virtue requires a true and precise knowledge of the objects it refers to, but that it actually consists of this knowledge. This is something the sophist cannot accept. But what interests us here is not to unravel the real meaning of Socratic intellectualism—​which is far from easy—​but to examine the Greek varieties of the ideal, the forms of areté and conscience and the experience of these excellences. The Platonic doctrine of knowledge has a great relevance for the fabulous construction of the ideal state and the parallel determination of the structure of human subjectivity. It is from this that the conception of philosophical education and the new aristocratic model of excellence and intellectual self-​consciousness arises. Familiarity with certain phases of culture should not make us forget their historical nature, their novelty and the need for self-​ affirmation and making one’s way forward. The Platonic investigation into the ideal state begins with an investigation into the nature of justice. A number of possibilities are examined, most of them undoubtedly proffered in discussions in Athens and mentioned by previous authors: return what is due, serve friends and harm enemies, what is best for the strongest, respect for the laws, not harming anyone … A parallelism is established between the different groups and the potential of the individual; and the structure of a well-​ordered state is determined according to the principle of division of labour. By way of reasoning and detailed discussions which are not worth pursuing here, it is agreed that a well-​ordered state is one that will be organised into three classes: the producers, auxiliary rulers and ruling guardians. A parallelism is established with three powers relating to the mind: appetitive, irascible and rational. What would later be called the four cardinal virtues fit beautifully both into the state and the individual. Temperance is the virtue which tempers the

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desires of the producers and appetites of the soul: courage must govern the conduct of the auxiliaries and the irascible mind; practical wisdom guides the actions of the rulers and the rational soul. The investigation on the nature of justice has required many pages and a great effort, but the results reached could not be clearer. Both in the city and the individual, justice is the harmonious conjunction of the parts, in which each sticks to his tasks without getting involved in those of the others: justice is ‘doing one’s own work’ (433 b), or in plain language, ‘cobbler, stick to your last’. Perhaps I should also recall the eloquence of General De Gaulle, when the disturbances of 1968 were calming down: il est temps que les enseignants enseignent, que les étudiants étudient, et que les travailleurs travaillent. The soul of the governors is golden, those of auxiliaries silver, and of the producers bronze or iron, says Plato, with a nod to Hesiod’s myth of the ages. Reproduction takes place within the classes, so it is normal for children to inherit the nature of their parents. However, the classes of the ideal Platonic state are not castes, because in an explicit development of the myth of metals, Plato clearly states that the members of one class may have children who are more apt for life in another. In these cases, we have to act in consequence: assign the children of rulers to production or educate those of the producers carefully for the hard-​working life of the philosophical rulers. As is well-​known, Plato dedicates the most beautiful pages to the ideal of philosophical education in all its phases: the general education of the body and spirit (gymnastics and music) of all the guardians, auxiliaries and rulers, and the higher education of those destined to rule the city. Along the way, he offers the marvellous analogies of the cave and the line to distinguish the forms of knowledge, from images to ideas. And he describes the sacrificial life of philosophical rulers, who do not have property or family. They don’t know their children, who are brought up and educated by the state. What is decisive for us are two things. First, there is a strength and imposing beauty to the three-​part structure of the soul and the model of philosophical education. The allegory of the Phaedrus for the three-​part soul is unforgettable: the winged chariot drawn by a concupiscent black horse and a game white horse steered by a rational charioteer. The initial education of the rulers would inspire the mediaeval division into seven liberal arts in the Trivium (grammar, dialectic and rhetoric) and the Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music), while higher education would reflect the problems of epistemology and the great philosopher’s theory of ideas. If humility is commitment and pride is confidence and the strength arising from it, as Shawn Tucker wishes, it has to be said that Platonic conscience of intellectual and moral excellence

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comes from humility and devotion to truth and ideas. This awareness of the excellence of human nature involves the wish to be worthy of it. Moreover, there is the question regarding those who receive philosophical education. We can leave to one side the peculiar nature of personal life assigned to the rulers. This educational ideal involves, first, comprehensive education and training (physical and intellectual); and then, truly philosophical education, with a journey through the forms of knowledge: imagination, belief, reasoning and intellect. The recourse to classical models has recognised in a number of periods how attractive this ideal is. However, in the Platonic project, higher education is not an educational ideal that can be generalised. Despite the room allowed for movement between classes, Plato insists again and again that what is important in human beings is always the form of being of one of the three social classes and one of the three parts of the soul. Having noted that proviso, individuals are by nature producers, auxiliaries or select souls who can be educated philosophically: ‘someone who is by nature a cobbler to practice cobblery and nothing else, for the carpenter to practice carpentry, and the same for the others’ (443 c). Not everyone can aspire to knowledge or is made to govern. It is a matter of the aristocracy of spirit. 2

Greatness of Soul

In his writings on morals, Aristotle says that there is agreement in terms of the name of the supreme good, a full or happy life (εὐδαιμονία), but not as to its nature. Normal people understand happiness to be a visible and tangible reality—​pleasure, wealth, honour—​and the same person tends to change opinion as his luck changes. For someone sick, it is health; for the poor, it is wealth. Men of the world tend to admire people who say grand and sophisticated things and value education or culture above all. Finally, the Platonists talk about good in itself, the reason why the good things that surround us are good (Nicomachean Ethics, 1095a 16–​29). Aristotle determines the different possibilities for understanding the supreme good based on the different forms of life lived by different types of people: the voluptuous life, political life and theoretical life. Most men live a life of enjoyment and value pleasure over all things, but this form of life does not distinguish them in anything from brutes. Political life pursues honours as the greatest of goods, but the philosopher objects to this on two counts: 1. One can be refused honours, like Achilles, and we look for something more personal which cannot be taken from us.

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Those who seek honours appear in reality to seek the confirmation of their worth and want to be judged by virtuous men, which shows that they value virtue or excellence above honours. Before moving on to theoretical life, Aristotle mentions a fourth possibility, life dedicated to profit, which he does not consider further, as he understands that the goal it seeks, which is wealth, cannot be conceived as a good in itself, but always as a means to achieve other goods. As Dirlmeier shows in his commentary, the doctrine of the three forms of life dates back to Ancient Greek concepts and appears in Solon and Bacchylides. In the Republic, Plato deduces them from the parts of the soul: 1. The appetitive part corresponds to the life of the lover of profit, who pursues pleasure and wealth. 2. The spirited part is that of the ambitious man, who pursues honours. 3. The rational part is that of the philosophical life, whose goal is knowledge. (580ff) Some commentators grant a broad scope to this reflection on the possibilities for training and life, which would include the class of modest craftsmen and peasants, whose daily work is focused on labour. However, the truth is that the educational proposals of Plato and Aristotle make sense above all in Athens for free and well-​off families and individuals. Young people of this class have before them various options and models for life which the philosophers simplify and schematise in these three categories—​pleasure, politics and study—​ to highlight their own ideal. Aristotle’s moral and educational proposal, which culminates in the ideal of magnanimity, a full or happy life, consists of two components: virtuous activity, which is the essential part, and external goods. The moral philosophy of Aristotle, which is part of his political philosophy, consists to a great extent of the deployment of this new philosophical conception of areté, based on the examination and criticism of previous conceptions. Compared with the Platonic theory of virtue as knowledge, Aristotle makes a conclusive distinction between ethical and dianoetic virtues, qualities of character and intelligence, whose depository is the ἦθος or moral character, a form of second nature, which in fact gives its name to the discipline of ethics. The Aristotelian theory of virtue, with its distinction between ethical and intellectual qualities, is the foundation of the broad scope of moral philosophy which calls on the notions of ‘moral character’ and ‘prudential judgement’, even in contemporary thought. In his conception of happiness, Aristotle also calls on external goods and distinguishes two types:

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Goods necessary for the actual exercise of virtue, which constitute necessary attributes of happiness, such as friends, wealth, political power, health and all the goods of the body except for beauty. 2. Goods necessary for happiness, without being required by the virtuous activity itself, which form part of the Ancient Greek ideals of happiness: beauty, illustrious ancestors, beautiful and successful children. It is not necessary to add pleasure to the exercise of virtue, as it is a natural consequence of it. No ​one would consider someone who did not enjoy the exercise of virtue to be good, says Aristotle. In terms of its origin, Aristotle wonders whether happiness comes from ourselves or from outside ourselves. For the first possibility, the answers are study, habits and natural disposition; for the second, divine favour and luck. The distinction between the essential part of happiness, which consists of the exercise of virtue, and external goods, allows Aristotle to give a precise response. Although a natural disposition is necessary, as he stresses in many passages, happiness depends on the individual, as the dianoetic virtues are acquired by study and ethic virtues by habit, although they are closely governed by reason. However, to the extent that external goods depend on chance, it has an influence on happiness, which is the reason for the question about how long it lasts and his answer. Can we call a man happy before his death, when the greatest of disgraces can still befall him? Yes, because while the exercise of virtue is essential for happiness, the person who exercises it for a long time and is in the fullness of his life will deserve to be considered happy, although this does not prevent him from no longer being happy if some misfortune befalls him. At this point we should recall the aristocratic ideal and pride of areté as the warrior virtue, which I have referred to before. With the growing democratisation of the city in the 6th Century, this virtue was under threat. The poets Theognis and Pindar reacted against this threat and insisted on the importance of aristocratic birth. For them, the question is now Race or culture? and whether areté can be taught; although the democratic conception of this did not appear until the sophists. These masters of rhetoric taught that anyone can be trained and acquire areté, which is no longer a warrior virtue, but one of the political qualities. Aristotle plays with the typical uncertainty of his time and the meanings of the term as warrior virtue and moral virtue. Moreover, the distinction between ethical and dianoetic virtues undoubtedly aims to compensate the Socratic intellectualism of virtue as science, but also take it to its ultimate consequences in the field of dianoetic virtues. According to the beautiful idea of Gauthier and Jolif (p. 105), taken from Festuguière, the dianoetic virtues advance in the Socratic doctrine on virtue, while ethical virtues echo the non-​theoretic but rather human Socrates, in how he behaved.

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It is Werner Jaeger who has highlighted best the connection between the old warrior areté, kalokagathía, and philosophical areté, ‘The great Athenian thinkers bear witness to the aristocratic origin of their philosophy, by holding that areté cannot reach true perfection except in the high-​minded man’. The English translation uses the term ‘high-​minded’, which is very nice, but what Jaeger says is hochgemut (exceedingly proud), here in a positive sense. He continues as follows: ‘Both Aristotle and Homer justify their belief that high-​mindedness is the finest expression of spiritual and moral personality, by basing it on areté as worthy of honour’ (Jaeger 1933-​47, 35/​12). Thus, in the hymn to areté of his father-​in-​law Hermias of Atarneus, who braved the torture of the Persians in order not do anything ‘unseemly or contrary to philosophy’, Aristotle connects philosophical areté with that of Homer and the models of Ajax and Achilles. And while Jaeger illustrates the relationship between the ideal of greatness of soul, i.e. the figure of the magnanimity in Book iv of the Nicomachean Ethics, the incarnation of the perfection of the ethical virtues, with the old warrior areté, Gauthier and Jolif do the same for the dianoetic dimension of man: ‘the first step towards the conception of a contemplative wisdom was taken when the democratic revolution abolished birthrights and the professors pretended to teach everyone the art of governing men … This pretension, of course, aroused the indignation of the aristocrats’ (p. 484). Aristotle also includes the intimate link between areté and honour, but his ideas represent a move from the public nature of the conscience of the Homeric man to personal conscience. The Homeric man, says Jaeger, ‘estimated his own worth exclusively by the standards of the society to which he belonged’ and ‘he measured his own areté by the opinion which others held of him’ (31/​9). That is the reason for the wounded pride of Achilles, his thirst for honour and his indignant anger when he is not awarded the highest recognition for his merits. Aristotle himself affirms explicitly the superiority of virtue over honour and understands that those who pursue public honours above all recognise this, given that what they want with them is really the recognition of their virtue; and they appreciate the judgment of the virtuous man above all others. However, the Aristotelean magnanimous is aware of his excellence and feels an undoubted pride and a certain wish to be honoured for it, as occurs with the contemplative man, who enshrines the highest destiny to which man can aspire. Now the man is thought to be proud who thinks himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them; for he who does so beyond his deserts is a fool, but no excellent man is foolish or silly […] For he who is worthy of little and thinks himself worthy of little is temperate, but not proud; for

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pride implies greatness […] he who thinks himself worthy of great things, being unworthy of them, is vain […] The man who thinks himself worthy of less than he is really worthy of is unduly humble […] The proud man, then, is an extreme in respect of the greatness of his claims, but a mean in respect of the rightness of them; for he claims what is in accordance with his merits, while the others go to excess or fall short […] Honours and dishonours, therefore, are the objects with respect to which the proud man is as he should be […] Pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the excellences; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore, it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character (καλοκαγαθία). Nicomachean Ethics, 1123 b1–​1124 a4

The educational model of Aristotle focused on young and free men, in other words on a small number of his compatriots. They are in the springtime of life and wonder how to organise and direct it. They can dedicate themselves to pleasure, politics or studies. The ideal proposed by Aristotle aims to go beyond the framework in which these possibilities are presented as exclusive alternatives. The ancient heroes were taught, as Phoenix recalls often to Achilles ‘to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds’ (Jaeger 1933-​47, 30/​8): speak, let’s say, the prudent words of Odysseus and do the warlike deeds of Achilles. We can also say that for Aristotle the full or happy life in harmony with the interior spirit, eudaimonía, consists of ‘carrying out actions and questioning the cosmos’, i.e. exercising the virtues: practical intelligence (phrónesis), which directs in turn the activity of the character, and theoretical intelligence (sofía), the incarnation of the speculative and philosophical destiny of man, whose greatest manifestation is the contemplation of God. But this philosophical ideal, perhaps conceived for a specific audience of young people, which competes with others such as the sophist ideal of Protagoras and Gorgias or the humanist ideal of Isocrates, does not appear strange today; in fact, it offers a universal and democratic appeal. The distinctions between character and intellect, between practical and theoretical life, can be recognised as our own, and as core elements around which education and its pretention to universality can be articulated, above gender, class and race. There is nothing further from aristocratic magnanimity than ordinary overbearing hubris, the attitude of superiority and disdain, which Tucker attributes to it. Moral virtues are at the service of valuable conduct in each sphere of activity, and the magnanimous man aspires to all of them, above all and decisively; although the thirst for honour of the ancient heroes remains unquenched. As we know, Tucker also offers a nice proposal of conceiving

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humility as a commitment and pride as confidence. In these terms, the humility of the magnanimous man is his commitment to value and his pride is confidence in his own excellence. However, with respect to democratic equality, the educational models of Plato and Aristotle are based on the axiological difference between individuals (die aristokratische Anschauung des Plato und Aristotle von der Verschiedenwertigkeit der Menschen, Jaeger 1933-​47: 146/​104). This difference is particularly crude in the distinction established by Aristotle between free humans and slaves by nature (Pol. ii, 5). In the thought of Plato, this inequality is tempered by the myth of metals, and in the thought of Aristotle by the theory of virtue as habit which is developed and strengthened based on private actions. But this aristocracy of virtue is also the aristocracy of lineage, because it is based quite naturally on superiority, both innate and of breeding. You have to be born with sight to judge correctly and choose the real good, says Aristotle, and the person whom nature has provided generously with it is well endowed in this respect, because ‘it is what is greatest and most noble, and what we cannot get or learn from another, but must have just such as it was when given us at birth’ (1114 b10–​11). Through the pertinent roundabout comments, he also states that although the noble by birth and the rich and powerful tend to be considered magnanimous, only the good man is truly worthy of honour. Despite which, ‘he, however, who has both advantages is thought the more worthy of honour’ (1124 a25). 3

Hubris, Outrage and Excess

The notion of proportion and moderation has a great importance in Greek culture. In the case of self-​valuation, which lies at the core of pride, moderation is particularly delicate. The lack of moderation, which is excess, leads easily to a proud attitude and character. Greek has an eloquent term for the loss of balance and proportion: ὕβρις. In reality, in its main sense, this term signifies the deliberate and pleasurable provocation of dishonour and shame in others, for which we tend to use outrage. It is the sense attributed to the term by Aristotle in his Rhetoric (ii, 2, 1378 b22–​27; ‘wanton violence, arising from the pride of strength or from passion, insolence’, is the first meaning in the Liddell-​Scott-​ Jones lexicon). According to N.R.E. Fisher, author of a monumental monograph on Greek húbris, the best way of articulating all its uses, from the archaic to the classical period, is by reference to the meaning made explicit by Aristotle. The simple popular identification of húbris with the insolence of men with respect to the gods is not therefore correct (Fisher 1992, Chapters 1 and 13). According

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to Fisher, húbris is above all outrage and the abuse by the powerful of the weak, who must implement the democratic rules and processes against the húbris of the aristocrats (húbreos graphé). Whatever the case may be, Plato considers húbris to be the lack of moderation and control of desires and passions (Phaedrus 238a). In Sophocles’ Ajax, the term hubristés appears, within only a few lines, with the meanings of insolent and insulting (verses 1088 and 1092). The hubris of Ajax is legendary but is expressed with other terms such as hupsikómpos and deinós. It consists of rejecting the help of the gods in general, on leaving his motherland, and that of Athena in particular, in the clamour of battle against Troy. The pride of Ajax led him to try to defeat and achieve glory ‘by his own strength’. When men grow to a size too great to do good, the prophet said, they are brought down by cruel misfortunes sent by the gods, yes, each one who has human nature but refuses to think only human thoughts. But he from the moment of his leaving home was found to be foolish when his father spoke well. ‘My son’, his father said to him, ‘wish for triumph in battle, but wish to triumph always with a god’s aid!’ And he replied boastfully and stupidly, ‘Father, together with the gods even one who amounts to nothing may win victory; but I am confident that I can grasp this glory even without them’. Such a boast as that he uttered; and a second time, when divine Athena urged him on and told him to direct his bloody hand against the enemy, he made answer with these dreadful and unspeakable words, ‘Queen, stand by the other Argives; where I am the enemy shall never break through’. By such words as these he brought on himself the unappeasable anger of the goddess, through his more than mortal pride. But if he is still alive this day, perhaps with a god’s help we may preserve him. trans. h. lloyd-​j ones, vv. 758–​779

According to Fisher, the sense in which direct insolence against the gods is called húbris rather than simply excess, is real, but derivative. He says that in tragedies it is only patent in The Persians by Aeschylus, which is perhaps an overstatement. With respect to his son Xerxes, the ghost of Darius insists that ‘that one who is a mortal should not think arrogant thoughts: outrage has blossomed, and has produced a crop of ruin, from which it is reaping a harvest of universal sorrow’ (verses 820–​823). And the chorus in the Eumenides insists that húbris is the daughter of impiety (v 534). There is a nice characterisation in the Hippolytus of Euripides, which appears to be in line with popular wisdom,

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about the excess of measuring oneself against the gods, ‘It is pride (húbris), nothing else, to try to best the gods’ (verses 474–​5). In fact, the term húbris or outrage also denotes or connotes the contrary of moderation, immoderation, which in many contexts can be translated as foolishness or insolence. You cannot rise into the brazen sky, be a god, cross the pillars of Hercules, navigate to the west of Cadiz. Although it is not its original sense, in the mythological and religious context, húbris leads us to question the nature and place of mortals with respect to the gods. Senselessness and overbearing pride, both with respect to the gods and among men, are called hubris in English and correspond to pride as an act of superiority and disdain. But serene pride, feeling one’s own value, does not have to be excessive. In analysing the notion of virtue, Aristotle calls on moderation and the just boundaries. Balance and moderation preside the ideal of magnanimity, the fullness of virtues of character and intelligence and the use of this scope of the term more inherent to aristocratic excellence: kalokagathía. 4

Pride and Work

The emotion of pride goes with and bolsters the awareness and affirmation of oneself. At times, this emotion simply refers to one’s own self as new or different, but it always conceals some type of positive valuation, which can have different levels or scopes. As we have seen, in Ancient Greece there were different models of individual, ideals of education and training which revolved around the idea of areté: virtue or excellence. This idea was transformed and adopted new forms, but preserves in general the trace and weight of the previous form. Warrior skills, nobility of origin, prosperity, political participation, intelligence and magnanimity are lived with composure and satisfaction. Each new ideal corresponds to historical and political events, but also involves proposals, discoveries and axiological postulates. However, pride does not necessarily appear linked to greatness received, but can accompany humility. The opposite of pride is not humility, but shame. Humility is humility with respect to something great or powerful; and pride is pride for the public or secret affirmation or recognition of something valuable, of a new greatness. Werner Jaeger classifies as proud humility (stolze Bescheidenheit) the affirmations of the spirit, before Plato and Aristotle, deployed by the poet Archilochus and the philosophers Xenophon and Parmenides. It is humility before the greats, the aristocrats of force, blood or money. But it is pride for the intimate awareness of another greatness: intellectual greatness. Here lies the venerable hierarchy between the goods of the

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spirit, the goods of the body and external goods. It is an axiological discovery of the greatest magnitude, which has great implications, however much time makes it appear a cliché. It is attributed to Socrates, to traditional wisdom, or, more plausibly, to the god Apollo. What is important is that it was not always there and had competitors, as can be seen from this example, an ancient festive song: Health is best for mortal men, Next best is being fair to see, Blameless wealth is next again, Last, youth and friends and revelry. jaeger 1933-​47: 604/​i i,40

In his writings, Thucydides explicitly introduces the idea of a change of values, to which Jaeger refers repeatedly with the Nietzschean expression Umwertung der Werte. According to the great Greek historian, political turbulence tends to be accompanied by axiological transformations. The ordinary acceptation of words in their relation to things was changed as men thought fit. Reckless audacity came to be regarded as courageous loyalty to party, prudent hesitation as specious cowardice, moderation as a cloak for unmanly weakness, and to be clever in everything was to do naught in anything. Frantic impulsiveness was accounted a true man’s part, but caution in deliberation a specious pretext for shirking. The hot-​headed man was always trusted, his opponent suspected. He who succeeded in a plot was clever, and he who had detected one was still shrewder; on the other hand, he who made it his aim to have no need of such things was a disrupter of party and scared of his opponents. iii, 82, 4–​5

Moreover, Thucydides himself points to a reason for pride to which we have not yet referred: the Athenians were proud of their ancient Athenian ancestry, not like any old Dorians, who had come from God knows where: ‘For this land of ours, in which the same people have never ceased to dwell in an unbroken line of successive generations’ (ii, 36, 2; also, i, 2, 5–​6). This new reason illustrates that the possible grounds for the emotion of pride are as varied as the possible reasons for rational action—​although that is another story. Human beings may feel proud of an enormous variety of things, provided that they do not have a neutral or negative value for the person who feels them in that way. Another thing is the destination of this valuation, its scope, permanence,

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transformation or subsequent rejection. The Athenians were proud of being from Athens, while the Aryans who came to the Indus valley felt proud of being well-​travelled, not like any old weak Dravidians, camped in the same place from God knows when. However much force it has had in history, with the passing centuries the idea will begin to be accepted, not without pain, that the direct or indirect origin from Homo erectus is not a very reliable value. But Greek literature contains another value of great importance, hidden behind the brilliance of heroes and philosopher-​kings. The peasant poet Hesiod wrote around the year 700 B.C., not much after Homer and a century before the democratic reforms of Solon. This great poet, who was visited by the muses while he pastured his sheep—​like the young David, future king of Israel, and our own Miguel Hernández—​introduced new ideas on law and work. In Works and Days, he shifts the praise for the divine justice of Zeus, characteristic of his Theogony, to the human scale. He praises justice and law in relations between unequals, such as landowners and peasants, and between equals, such as him and his brother Perses, with whom he had a bitter dispute about his father’s inheritance. His fascinating paean to work appears in the form of a curse on his brother. So, Perses, you of divine stock, keep working and always bear in mind our behest, so that Famine will hate you and well-​garlanded reverend Demeter will love you and fill your granary with the means of life. For Famine is ever the companion of a man who does not work; and gods and men feel resentment against that man, whoever lives without working, in his temper like stingless drones that consume the labor of the bees, eating it without working. But as for you, be glad to organize your work properly, so that your granaries will be filled with the means of life in good season. It is from working that men have many sheep and are wealthy, and if you work you will be dearer by far to immortals and to mortals: for they very much hate men who do not work. Work is not a disgrace at all, but not working is a disgrace. And if you work, the man who does not work will quickly envy you when you are rich; excellence (areté) and fame attend upon riches. Whatever sort you are by fortune, working is better, if you turn your foolish spirit away from other men’s possessions toward work, taking care for the means of life, as I bid you. Shame (αἰδώς) is not good at providing for a needy man—​shame, which greatly harms men and also benefits them: for shame goes along with poverty, and self-​confidence goes along with wealth. Works and Days, 298–​319

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The second of the legendary poets of Greece offers us these special ideas and values at an early stage of history. In the Aristotelean theory, virtue points to a mid-​point in the amount between excess and absence, but at an axiological maximum. Similarly, from the chronological point of view, the ideas of Hesiod are mid-​way between the mentality of heroes and that of philosophers. But axiologically, they easily exceed both and are of a surprising modernity. Hesiod expresses the areté of effort and labour, which is new with respect to that of the nobles and owners. It was not really incorporated either into the political qualities of the democrats or the intellectual and moral virtues of philosophers. Hesiod also eloquently condemns various forms of divine and human húbris, which alter balance and justice. With respect to them, effort is steeped in humility, but as in all forms of areté, also in pride, a strong awareness of its value and dignity. The contrary is dishonour and shame. Homer’s poetry brings out one fundamental fact: that all culture starts with the creation of an aristocratic ideal, shaped by deliberate cultivation of the qualities appropriate to a nobleman and a hero. Hesiod shows us the second basis of civilization—​work. The later Greeks recognized this when they gave his didactic poem the title of Works and Days. Heroism is shown, and virtues of lasting value are developed, not only in the knight’s duel with his enemy, but in the quiet incessant battle of the worker against the elements and the hard earth. It is not for nothing that Greece was the cradle of a civilization which places work high among the virtues. He praises it [work] as the only way to areté, difficult though it is. The idea of areté embraces both personal ability and its products—​welfare, success, repute. It is neither the areté of the warrior noble, nor the areté of the landowning class, built on wealth, but the areté of the working man, expressed in the possession of a modest competence. Areté is the catchword of the second part of the poem, the real Erga. The aim of work is areté as the common man understands it. He wishes to make something of his areté, and he engages, not in the ambitious rivalry for chivalrous prowess and praise which is commended by the code of the aristocrat, but in the quiet strong rivalry of work. In the sweat of his brow shall he eat bread—​but that is not a curse, it is a blessing. Only the sweat of his brow can win him areté. From this it is obvious that Hesiod deliberately sets up against the aristocratic training of Homer’s heroes a working-​class

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ideal of education, based on the areté of the ordinary man. Righteousness and Work are the foundations on which it is built. jaeger 1933-​47: 89/​57, 106/​70–​71

Pride, hubris and humility adopt other different forms in Judaeo-​Christian religion, which is the other source of our culture, together with Ancient Greece.

­c hapter 4

The Hubris of the Angel 1

The Problem of Sources

The Hebrew Bible does not offer many details about the sin and fall of Lucifer, the most beautiful angel; or, in any depth, about the sin and fall of Adam and Eve, our first parents. The explanations given in the deuterocanonical books and the New Testament are also insufficient. That is why we have to make use of other sources. As could be expected, these delicate issues have given rise to numerous speculations, more or less removed from reality. As I do not want to lose myself in the mess of theories and interpretations, and prefer to stick as far as possible to the description of the facts, I will use few sources, basically two of the most reliable, while not neglecting the Scriptures. First is the great systematisation of Catholic knowledge by Saint Thomas Aquinas, which always offers us certain guarantees. His work can be used with total confidence in the analysis and clarification of an infinite number of theological and philosophical problems. In the case of the angels, trust in Saint Thomas’s erudition and insight may be considered greater still, if it were possible: it is no coincidence that he has been worthy of the soubriquet Doctor Angelicus. As is well known, his superiors released him from his duty to form part the monastery’s choir, so that instead of singing like an angel, he could dedicate his efforts to unravelling the nature of angels. Worth particular study with respect to this research are the questions 50 to 64 of the first part of the Summa Theologica, also known as the Treaty on Angels. The work also includes some key observations on human beings, as we will see in the next chapter. The questions dedicated specifically to original sin are numbers 82–​83 of the first section of the second part of the Summa (prima secundae) and questions 163–​165 of the second section of the second part (secunda secundae). Questions 82–​83 are among those dedicated to vice and sin, following acts and passions and within habits; while questions 163–​165 are among those dedicated to temperance as one of the moral virtues. I will also refer to the work De malo, which is relevant both for the sin of the angels and the sin of men. Before Aquinas, Christian thought was marked above all by the work of Saint Augustine of Hippo. I will mention briefly his interpretation of original sin when highlighting the originality of Aquinas. Furthermore, in 1947 the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the caves of Qumran. In the following years, more manuscripts were found in caves in

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_006

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the area, including Biblical and extra-​Biblical fragments. Most of them were in Hebrew, but some also in Aramaic and Greek, together with a few examples in other languages. This fascinating treasure dates back basically from the 2nd Century B.C. to the 2nd Century A.D. It was very well preserved (given its age) and has extended enormously our historical and religious knowledge. We now know that among the Dead Sea Scrolls is an apocalyptic organisational and military strategy manual called The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, also known as the War Scroll. The manuscript was among the parchments found in the Qumran 1 cave. It was acquired by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and published (posthumously) for the first time by Eleazar Sukenik in 1955. The document is composed of a number of rolls and fragments, including 1qm and 4Q491-​497, with The War of the Messiah possibly being the conclusion of the document. Fragments 4Q491-​497 were published by Maurice Baillet in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, and include a shorter version of the War Scroll. Thematically, it appears to be inspired by Zoroastrian texts. What is less well known is that this apocalyptic treatise on wars between ‘the sons of the light and the sons of darkness’ also contains an appendix which narrates the original war, which took place between the same armies, but at the beginning rather than the end of time. This first war was provoked by the sin of the majestic angel Lucifer, the bearer of light. The document narrating this war also includes a detailed description of the sin and fall of humans and constitutes the second fundamental source for my presentation. In fact, the appendix to the War Scroll carries a subtitle which refers to this second event: Paradise Lost. To the surprise of all the experts, it has been preserved entirely in English, a language which is rather unusual in the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 2

The Creation of the Angels

To properly examine the nature of the angel’s sin, of course first we need some background information about the nature of angels. This means we have to investigate their substance and way of being, matter and form (if they have one), their relationship with body and location, their possibilities for movement across space, their ways and means of knowledge and the forms of their will, freedom and love. Thomas Aquinas analysed these and other questions with rigour and in depth. I will only refer to the matters most directly related to the subject of sin, which is what interests us here; I will allude to the other subjects I have just mentioned only in passing and where strictly necessary. The matters most directly related to sin are those which appear next in his

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treatise: the generation of the angels, their perfection in grace and glory, the sin and the penalty for their evil. Above all, it is important to realise that our context is not at all Manichean. In contrast with other visions of the cosmos, good and evil, right and left, Ormuz and Ahriman are not independent principles here (i, q. 49, a. 3), as they were also not for Saint Augustine. Angels and men were created by God, as is true for everything that is not God: they are His creatures. Precisely because of that, they are good. Evil appears in the world as a result of the sovereign and free decisions they make. Angels have been created, as is clear if we simply consider the careful reasoning which concludes as follows: ‘God alone exists of His own essence and all other beings have their existence by participation’ (i, q. 61, a. 1 co). There is no need go further; here we already see the first great discrepancy of the angel (and the first clue as to his sin), eloquently expressed in our other fundamental source, the appendix of the War Scroll of Qumran. Satan and his legions do not consider themselves to be creatures—​created beings—​but rather creators themselves, self-​creators. That is why, for them, God is an equal, who has won the first battle by force and may lose the following by force: We know no time when we were not as now; Know none before us, self-​begot, self-​rais’d By our own quick’ning power, when fatal course Had circl’d his full Orbe, the birth mature Of this our native Heav’n, Ethereal Sons. Our puissance is our own, our own right hand Shall teach us highest deeds, by proof to try Who is our equal. Paradise Lost v, 859–​866

Of course, there is a difference in the nature of material and spiritual creatures. Immaterial substances, separate intelligences or angels are creatures, and therefore finite in absolute terms (simpliciter). This doesn’t mean that we can’t attribute to them a certain infinity, considering them infinite in some way (secundum quid), as their form does not partake of any matter. Aquinas also states that material creatures are infinite on the part of matter. In my opinion, this point requires a lengthier explanation than the one he offers here. In any event, it is clear that participating in infinity on the part of form (spiritual creatures) or matter (material creatures) is sufficient reason to recognise a difference in their nature. Aquinas refers to the Liber de Causis to conclude, looking at the finite and infinite from another angle, that spiritual creatures or angels

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are finite from above, in other words, for having received being, and infinite from below, in other words because their form is not received in any matter (i, q. 50, a. 2 ad. 4). As we may imagine, there was an angel for whom being only half infinite was not enough. We can’t deal here with all the matters relating to the creation of the angels; but if we are to deal with our subject with any assurance, we have to address at least a couple more. This is a particularly difficult point, as our two fundamental sources, which in general complement each other, present some discrepancies at this point which at first sight appear insurmountable. The first question is whether the angels were created at the same time as heaven, the earth and the rest of the creatures, or whether there was a certain period of time between the creation of the angels and the creation of everything else. The second question is in what state of perfection, beatitude and grace the angels were created. His analytical precision leads Thomas Aquinas to examine these questions in succession, but in my opinion the treatment of the second question allows us to better understand and consolidate the conclusion he offers for the first. With respect to the first question, Aquinas admits the soundness of the opposing opinions of the Doctors of the Church and does not consider conclusive, but only more probable (probabilior), the opinion he leans towards: that the angels were created at the same time as the rest of things. The reason he gives is that the angels are part of creation (as we have seen before), the works of God are perfect (Dt 32, 4) and the creation is even more perfect if it has all its parts at the same time. But Aquinas combines intelligence with humility; he is aware that this reason is not final, and states that the contrary opinion may not be considered mistaken without reason, particularly when it has been held by outstanding figures such as Gregory of Nazianzus. According to this opinion, before the creation of heaven and the earth, the angels were created in the resplendent fiery empyrean, the highest heaven, or the heaven of heavens. As to the second question, Saint Thomas seeks a balance between the blessedness, freedom, merit and grace of angels at the moment of their creation. Unlike human beings, who must make an effort to reach happiness, the spiritual nature of angels means that from the start they are in a state of blessedness or natural happiness. However, as creatures, angels may not achieve supernatural blessedness or the vision of God by themselves. Two elements have to be in place immediately after their creation: sanctifying grace, which is the work of God; and an act of charity or inclination to God, which is the work of the angel. Only by the element of grace is the inclination to God an act of merit, as no creature deserves—​far from it—​to achieve glory by its own efforts. We can understand the need to postulate this second moment to explain the participation of angels in their destiny. Angels are not created in a

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state of eternal beatitude. However, according to Aquinas, their glorification or condemnation took place at the next moment, because, precisely due to their spiritual nature, their knowledge was intuitive and their will instantaneous, so their actions were not subject to deliberation and council, as ours are. This is the element which, as I have noted just now, appears to influence the conclusion of our previous question, i.e. whether angels, other creatures, the heavens and the earth were all created at the same time. In my opinion, the difficulty in thinking that the intelligence and will of the angels is subject to discursive and temporal processes (even though it may be necessary to introduce a duplication of instants to conceive their glorification and condemnation) is what also leads Aquinas not only to the reason he expressly gives (that creation is more perfect in this way), but also to consider it improbable that the creation of angels is prior to that of the heavens and the earth. However, on this point the discrepancy with the appendix of the War Scroll is insurmountable, as this document narrates in full detail the war between the sons of the light and the sons of the darkness, which took place before creation and does not fit between the two instants proposed by Aquinas. Now, as we have seen, Aquinas himself leaves open the contrary possibility, saying that the other opinion cannot be considered wrong without justification. We have to make use of this possibility to make sense of the epic events narrated by our source from Qumran, which took place between the creation of the angels and that of the world. These facts allow us to understand and explain the nature and mechanisms of the sin of the angel, which at first appears obscure from the point of view of instantaneous salvation and condemnation. 3

The Sin of the Angel

I would now like to deal with how the angels became evil. The angel wanted to be like God. That much seems clear. However, on closer analysis, it becomes apparent that this statement (as in the case of so many others) is complex and contains within it a variety of questions that have to be carefully distinguished. Again, I don’t know a better way of addressing and assessing this matter than to accept the hand offered by our master Aquinas. Once we have the fundamental elements in place, we will be in a position to search for other sources and assimilate other data; or perhaps, if we manage to climb like mice onto his shoulders—​which would be some feat—​we will be able to introduce some different perspectives. In any event, perhaps the War Scroll appendix from the Dead Sea will allow us to complete and illustrate our vision. Allow me to

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comment in passing that the image of the little men who see further than the giants as they are on their shoulders, is rather deficient. If the little men are very small, as tends to be the case, their height would be less than the distance between the shoulders and eyes of the giants, who would therefore still be able to see much further. And if instead of little men we had little mice, as in this case, the situation would be even worse. But we will do what we can. According to Saint Thomas of Aquinas, the angel’s desire can be understood in two ways: by equality (aequiparantia) and by likeness (similitudo) (i, q. 63, a. 3). With respect to the first way, the angel could not wish to be like God by equality, in other words, to want to be God, for two reasons. First, because this is impossible, and nothing leads us to suppose that the angel lost his natural intellectual and volitional faculties and could become so confused, as we are, that he desired what is impossible. But, moreover, this desire is impossible not only from the point of view of the object, but also the subject, given that it involves its non-​being. The desire to be like God by equality—​the desire to be God—​involves the non-​being of the subject of the desire, and no creature can wish to stop being. As the Doctor of the Church observes acutely, we are tricked by our imagination and confuse the natural desire for growth and perfection of our accidental qualities with the impossible desire of our non-​being through a change of nature. ‘Now it is quite evident’, says Aquinas, ‘that God surpasses the angels, not merely in accidentals, but also in degree of nature; and one angel, another. Consequently, it is impossible for one angel of lower degree to desire equality with a higher; and still more to covet equality with God’ (i, q. 63, a. 3 co). Now, this reasoning must be weighed up extremely carefully. Someone could object initially that Aquinas assumes precisely what the angel does not accept: that God exceeds him ‘not in accidentals, but in the degree of nature’. But it is not as simple as that. To see the way in which the angel accepts and does not accept his distance with respect to God, the difference in nature between the two, it is necessary to see how the angel’s psychology is deployed in primordial or empyrean time. To do so, we have to admit that the time between the creation and the fall of the angel is more than an instant, which Aquinas considered unlikely but possible. As we have already mentioned, in order to approach this subject, and the activities of the angel after the Fall, we have the assistance of the War Scroll, which was discovered on the shores of the Dead Sea; but we have to postpone its consideration for a moment. First of all, it is important to examine Aquinas’s observation that a creature may not desire its own non-​being. This statement is not trivial and is worth examining fully. As always, Aquinas illustrates the most abstract concepts with the most natural examples: clear proof that abstraction is far from being an

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uncontrolled speculation, but is rather fully motivated by the nature of things. The ass, he says, can’t desire to be a horse, as this would involve its non-​being. What it desires is for its poor qualities to be closer to the strength and beauty of a horse. Similarly, the angel can’t wish to be like God by equality—​simply be God—​as this would involve its non-​being; but to be God without losing a certain continuity with what he is. With respect to the second way in which the angel can wish to be like God, that is by likeness, according to Aquinas this can also be understood in two ways, which in the end are the same. The first way in turn has two variants. A creature may aspire to be like God and to contemplate Him in proper order, i.e. obtain the likeness from Him. There is no sin in this, but rather charity and submission. But the creature may try to be like God of his own power, even pretend that this likeness is due to him; and therein lies the sin. Moreover, the creature may desire to be like God in power, as creator of heaven and earth, and this is what the angel did. Here Aquinas introduces an idea which we have already come across, and which will become clearer a little later: the angel can’t want to be like God and not be subject to anything without contradiction, as it would involve his own non-​being. Whatever the case, Aquinas concludes—​in my opinion a little over-​eagerly—​that the two forms of desiring to be like God by likeness come to meet in the desire to achieve beatitude of itself, without the involvement of God. We are now in a position to understand the Thomist proposal for the nature of the angel’s sin. In sin, as is only right, two things have to be distinguished: guilt and affection (i, q. 63, a. 2). The fallen angels or demons are subject to all the sins by guilt; they are guilty of all the sins, because they lead men to commit them. But as the angels are spiritual in nature, the angelic sin itself in terms of affection, the act and the feeling of sin, may only be spiritual. And as all spiritual objects are good, Aquinas lucidly states, ‘There can be no sin when anyone is incited to good of the spiritual order; unless in such affection the rule of the superior be not kept. Such is precisely the sin of pride—​not to be subject to a superior when subjection is due (non subdi superiori in eo quo debet). Consequently, the first sin of the angel can be none other than pride’ (i, q. 63, a. 2 co). To properly explain this new notion of pride, we need more elements, which will only appear in full in the analysis of human sin. 4

The Fall of the Angel

Philosophy without myth is empty and myth without philosophy is blind. The phrase is by Werner Jaeger, the great philologist, but I was just about to make

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it up when I read it. However, this great truth (oh dear!) fails precisely in our sources. The lógos of Aquinas is as pregnant with feeling as the full moon and the heart of the Ecclesiastical Jesus, son of Sirach, while the myths of the blind poet throw more light on matters than a thousand philosophers. Having said that, in issues as serious as those which occupy us here (the sin of the angel) and that we will be dealing with shortly (the sin of man) where the lógos does not reach, myth has to help us; and where myth does not reach, what comes to our aid is the lógos. In accordance with the lógos, the fall of Lucifer took place in an instant; not at the moment of his creation, but in the instant immediately afterwards. As we have seen, there are reasons for thinking this. However, our understanding of the psychology of the angel and of his sin is enormously facilitated when the poet displays this instant with all his eloquence in the empyrean time of the myth. It is against this glorious backdrop that the original war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness took place, headed up by the Adversary, as told in the appendix of the War Scroll from the Dead Sea. It is also worth noting that the most beautiful angel and other figures acting against God are not identified from the start. The Paleo-​Christian texts and the theologians identify the figures contrary to God: Lucifer (Is 14) =​Satan (Job 1, Lc 10) =​the Devil (Wis 2, 24, Mt 4) =​the serpent (Gn 3, Ap 12). The identification of all of them must not let us forget that these figures were originally independent and had specified functions: Satan is an intelligent sceptic, Lucifer the arrogant rebel and the serpent embodies tempting seduction. But the event of the initial fall is presupposed in all cases. boerner 2016: 788

We already know that the sin of the angel could not be other than hubris, in other words insubordination (non subdi superiori in eo quo debet). The angel Lucifer, bearer of light, wanted to be like God. A philosophical analysis shows clearly, perhaps even coldly, that evil is not a principle independent from good, which should be located from the beginning at its same level. Evil is rather the work of the angels, creatures which were created good and free by God, who will then drag down the humans. And the root of evil is hubris, insubordination, when the creature does not submit, does not incline itself, does not recognise itself as such before its creator. Philosophical analysis shows that the essential point of this process can be shown in two instants: the creation of the good angels, free, invited to glory; and the act of submission or insubordination, which generates either their beatitude or eternal damnation. God creates

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the angels free, as He does then with human beings, because a necessary obedience may not produce any delight: What pleasure I from that obedience paid (Paradise Lost iii, 107). Well, the deployment of mythology allows the introduction of a certain psychological mass into this process. According to the epic, God does not demand one submission from the angels, but two. This repetition is experienced by Lucifer as a real provocation and it is what triggers his rebellion. According to the War Scroll from the Dead Sea, one day God called by surprise all his legions to tell them that he had engendered a Son and to order the same submission and obedience from them to his Son as to Him. This is without doubt poetic licence, given that God, the Son and the Holy Spirit exist ab aeterno (for example, Summa Theologica i, q. 61, a. 2 co). In any case, that night Lucifer tosses and turns and can’t sleep. First, he wakes up his deputy and then his troops and tells them of his growing indignation. His first insubordination was already excessive, but doubling it is absolutely unacceptable. Knee-​tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile, Too much to one, but double how endur’d, To one and to his image now proclaim’d? But what if better counsels might erect Our minds and teach us to cast off this Yoke? Will ye submit your necks, and chuse to bend The supple knee? Paradise Lost v, 782–​788

Lucifer sees his rebellion as the response to the insistence of the Supreme Being on submission, experienced by him as a provocation. That is why he conceives it as a combat between freedom and servitude. The angel becomes the demon due to insubordination. Lucifer, the bearer of light, becomes Satan, the Adversary. Initially, the demon is not an ugly beast who eats children for breakfast. He does not cut the throats of the first-​born Egyptians, like the God of Moses (Ex. 12, 12), nor does he require all the inhabitants (men, women and children) of a conquered land to be put to the sword, as does the God of Joseph (Joseph and Judges, passim). The Devil is the highest angel, the most beautiful and majestic, after his fall. In his rebellion, war and defeat, he was accompanied by millions of angels, a third of all the heavenly hosts, which turned into the same number of demons. Satan presents the war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness as the war between the servitude of heaven and freedom of hell. Shortly after the uprising, the fallen angel stopped to contemplate the difference between peace

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and war and the formidable cataclysms which the latter will involve. Peace is simple and requires only one thing: spiritual submission. But this thought is literally unacceptable for him and he chooses war: Peace is despaird, | For who can think Submission? Warr then, Warr | Open or understood must be resolv’d (Paradise Lost i, 661–​63). God is an equal who is venerated by apathy and tradition. In this cosmic war, freedom and servitude clash. Satan reprehends the loyal legions of God for their servitude and considers them spiritual eunuchs. At first I thought that Libertie and Heav’n To heav’nly Soules had bin all one; but now I see that most through sloth had rather serve, Ministring Spirits, traind up in Feast and Song; Such hast thou arm’d, the Minstrelsie of Heav’n, Servilitie with freedom to contend, As both thir deeds compar’d this day shall prove. Paradise Lost vi, 164–​170

For the arch-​enemy, the apostate angel, the lord of the air and of darkness, the superiority of God can only be military, and this is the area in which the battle takes place. Satan unveils a monarchical majesty and pride and even a similarity to the Highest which are, in turn, unbearable to contemplate, particularly for Abdiel, the only angel who stands up to him at the start of the uprising. There are various phases in the war. The rebels introduce infernal machines onto the field of battle and the forces are balanced with the intervention of the archangel Michael with all his armies. But the defeat of the great dragon, the ancient serpent, only takes place with the intervention of the Son of God. The Adversary and his legions take nine days to fall to the infernal lake, which has been recently created for them. Isaiah describes it eloquently in the form of the King of Babylon. How you are fallen from heaven, | O Day Star, son of Dawn! | How you are cut down to the ground, | you who laid the nations low! | You said in your heart, | ‘I will ascend to heaven; | I will raise my throne | above the stars of God; | I will sit on the mount of assembly | on the heights of Zaphon; | I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, | I will make myself like the Most High’. | But you are brought down to Sheol, | to the depths of the Pit. is 14, 12–​15

The philosopher had already shown clearly that the angel’s salvation and condemnation is instant and final. The blessed angel cannot sin; he is impeccable,

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while the condemned angel cannot be redeemed, he is irremissible. The poet agrees perfectly with this. The fallen angel, the Devil, reaffirms himself in evil, which he continues to call freedom, opposing it to servitude: Here at least | We shall be free […] Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n (Paradise Lost i, 258–​ 263). But the poet’s intuition coincides in many other points with the iron-​clad arguments of philosophical reason, to which he gives life and colour. And here I will only refer to a couple of these convergences. Philosophical analysis of the angel’s sin had shown that he wanted to be like God through his own strength. There is no sin in wanting to be God by likeness, in wanting to be like God, to merge with God, provided it is as is due; in other words, through love, inclination and the opening up of the will to the gift. That is why Saint Anselm said, as Aquinas recalls, that the angel wanted to obtain for himself what he would have received if he had persevered, like the glorified angels. That is where the whole difference lies. And the poet expresses it with complete lucidity. Satan and Beelzebub, recently fallen, lay chained in the burning lake. God allowed them to get up and leave it, but they boasted that they had achieved it by themselves (Paradise Lost i, 209–​213, 238–​241). Moreover, according to Aquinas, a subject may not wish to be another of a different degree of nature, because he would become a non-​being as a subject and no one may wish for his own non-​being. Much more so, a creature, however angelic it may be, can’t wish to be God by equality because it cannot wish to lose all continuity with what it is, stop being what it is. As we have seen, Aquinas grants so much value to this argument that he uses it again in the reflection on the other way of wanting to be God, that is, by likeness. Well, the need for a certain continuity of oneself, of the intimate experience of self, is sketched by the poet eloquently; not in the ascent to God, but rather, the opposite way, in the descent to hell. Satan reaffirms himself in every decision made in hell, because there he retains both freedom, as we have just seen, and his self, as we will now see, The mind, says the Devil, who appears to have also turned into a philosopher, is its own place, and in it self | Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n. | What matter where, if I be still the same (Paradise Lost i, 254–​256). But the complementarity of philosophy and poetry, reason and passion, does not end there. The fascinating deployment of the angel’s psychology by the poet offers a natural place to the most convincing theories of the philosopher. Milton’s Satan is rich and experiences all the passions that may assail pure spirits. Once the fallen angels have been recomposed in the wake of the debacle and transformed into demons, gods or idols of the false religions, the great Infernal Conclave takes place in the Pandaemonium, the palace of Satan. The greatest take the floor. Moloc is in favour of open war. Belial argues for

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an unworthy peace. Mammon considers it insufferable to serve again. And, having noted the limited possibilities of success of a new war against heaven, Beelzebub makes the finally accepted proposal: to take their revenge against God in his new creature, the human being, if certain rumours proved true, that he was preparing to create—​if he had not already done so—​this strange being who possesses the dignity of the angel and the materiality of the brute. But to exit this inferno, cross through the chaos, search for the new world, avoid all the celestial hosts and corrupt human beings, requires a team of brave entities and there is only one. Satan undertakes the mission alone. At this time, a terrible silence was in the Pandaemonium, the city of the demons. It was a silence of admiration for the bravery of Satan, which we can use to a certain theoretical benefit. After the cosmic cataclysm and the fall of the rebels in the recently created inferno, it was to be expected that all the known values would have also fallen with them, or at least to have been seriously disturbed. In this case, the rebel armies would not have manifested respect and admiration for the bravery of Satan, but for the cowardice of any poor devil. But admiration for cowardice is impossible even in hell. If the transvaluation of all values is a chimera in hell, it is even more so outside it. Values do not allow themselves to be transvalued as simply as that. The excellence of the lost angel is not only recognised by his colleagues and the poet, but also by the philosopher. After making the appropriate distinction between proneness and motive, Thomas Aquinas himself openly recognises that Satan is not superior to the other angels in proneness to sin, but only in the motive for sinning. Hubris is the insubordination to the superior with respect to what is due. According to Aquinas, following Gregory, it is inherent to what is most excellent and the work of free choice (i, q. 63, a. 7 co). In fact, as well as his proud wings, the emperor of the fallen also deploys his proud thoughts. The majestic trip of Satan in search of man is also the occasion to contemplate the flight of his imagination. But, unfortunately, the king of the air himself suffers a moment of weakness and doubt. God does not doubt, but the Adversary does, even if only for a moment. Satan remembers the cosmic war, invokes the sun and revives his passion. At root, he tells himself, obeying the one who created him was not so difficult and the insubordination only required an instant. Ah wherefore! he deservd no such return From me, whom he created what I was In that bright eminence, and with his good Upbraided none; nor was his service hard. What could be less then to afford him praise,

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The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks, How due! yet all his good prov’d ill in me, And wrought but malice; lifted up so high I sdeind subjection, and thought one step higher Would set me highest, and in a moment quit The debt immense of endless gratitude. Paradise Lost iv, 42–​52

Yet Satan restores himself immediately and reaffirms his determination. So farewel Hope, and with Hope farewel Fear, Farewel Remorse: all Good to me is lost; Evil be thou my Good; by thee at least Divided Empire with Heav’ns King I hold By thee, and more then half perhaps will reigne; As Man ere long, and this new World shall know. Paradise Lost iv, 108–​113

Although he restores himself immediately, the fleeting recognition of having been created, contrary to the determined statements of being the creator of himself, which we have already seen (v, 859–​866), prevents the sin of the angel from being reduced to a cognitive error. This provides justification for Thomas Aquinas, in his treatment of the aspiration to be God by equality, to appeal to the evidence that there is a difference in the degree of nature between the angel and God. And this is why it cannot be said without qualification that this difference is precisely what the angel does not recognise. The angel knows this difference. He does not recognise it in the sense that he does not accept it, although he knows it. The error is not in his understanding, but his will. In reality, the attribution of the war and the cosmic cataclysm, by which a third of the celestial hosts plunged into the abyss, to a moment of hubris, insubordination, disobedience and ingratitude coincides with this logical instant which Aquinas attributes to the fall. And the dramatic and decisive nature of the instant can also be illustrated by comparison with a very different and much more eloquent case than any Kierkegaardian gobbledegook. Despite having reasons for it, despite the complications of all his protests and the repeated exhortations of his wife (Curse and die!), what old Job never did, what he never did for even an instance, was to curse or spit at God. As far as we know, the angel also did not curse God. Evil was born in an instant of angelic hubris, in other words insubordination. May Lucifer pardon me, but the sins of human beings are a little more complex.

­c hapter 5

The Hubris of the Human 1

The State of Innocence

Before the arrival of Satan, human beings lived in the Earthly Paradise in a state of innocence. It was a state of harmony or original justice, in which Adam and Eve enjoyed a certain incorruptibility and immortality. This state of innocence was transformed for ever by the sin they committed at the urging of Satan, the Adversary. By original sin we understand two things: an act and a state. Original sin as an act is the first transgression against the divine order. Original sin as a state is the condition into which human nature was transformed after this transgression. First, we are going to examine the state of innocence and compare it to the state of original sin or sin of nature. For its part, the act of original sin has been interpreted across history in very many different forms: disobedience, concupiscence, curiosity or appetite for knowledge, even greed; a very frugal greed, of course, however appetising the apple. I don’t believe that I am revealing any mystery if I anticipate what is the soundest interpretation, offered by many theologians, which presents it as a sin of pride or hubris. But to understand correctly this conception of the nature of original sin, we first have to analyse hubris in some detail. Elements we have already seen in Lucifer’s sin appear in this analysis, together with other new ones. I consider it is worth carefully examining these historical forms of pride and hubris. How they fit into the earlier and later forms will be clarified gradually, but it may only be demonstrated when moving from the historical variations to the conceptual ones in the final philosophical analyses. Inevitably, I will now confidently rely on the wisdom of the great Aquinas and on the distinction he offers between general hubris and special hubris. In this section and the following, we will address the following issues: the states of innocence and original sin; the distinction between general hubris and special hubris; the difference between spiritual and moral humility; and the act of original sin. To understand the kind of immortality enjoyed by our first parents in the state of innocence, we have to distinguish three types, referring to matter, form and efficient cause. First, the incorruptibility of what does not have matter, such as angels, or that has it as a potentiality for one form only, like the heavenly bodies. Second is the incorruptibility by the glory of something that is by nature corruptible. Third, there is a type of fullness of material nature and

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_007

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of the faculties which depend on it through a supernatural force given to the soul. This latter type of incorruptibility is the type of immortality and incorruptibility enjoyed by Adam and Eve. It is not that they lacked the material and bodily part of their nature, or were formed by elements which were inherently incorruptible, but that their bodies and corporeal faculties, which were predominantly sensitive like those of the rest of the natural creatures, experienced an attraction of the soul by which they were not subject to the ordinary corruption of nature. For this reason, they did not suffer the ravages of illness and ageing, which does not mean that they could have been able to last eternally (i, q. 97, a. 1). The proof that the first parents did not enjoy eternity in real terms in the Earthly Paradise is that even if they had eaten of the tree of life, they would not have been able to achieve it. According to Aquinas, if they had eaten of the tree of life, the immortality it promised would have consisted of an intensification of the incorruptibility inherent to their state of innocence, which has nothing to do with the state of beatitude and eternal glorification. In fact, the incorruptibility could have declined over time. To renew it, Adam and Eve would probably have had to return to eat from the revitalising tree (i, q. 97, a. 4). In any case, Thomas Aquinas analyses other questions relating to the state of innocence, of which I will mention a couple on generation, without taking time over them, which does not mean that there are no major discrepancies between the doctors of the Church, or that their balanced resolution by Aquinas is at all easy. According to Aquinas, if the first parents had had children before the original sin, they would have engendered them through normal coitus, the mother would have given birth to them without pain and they would have inherited the state of innocence of their parents. But although it is important to realise the natural components of the state of innocence and harmony in which Adam and Eve lived with the rest of the creatures, what is most important for our study is its spiritual components. The contrast between natural and spiritual elements is of great assistance in understanding and describing the state of original sin. The state of innocence is a state of health and spiritual peace. Saint Thomas’ expression is accurate: original justice. The state of innocence is a state of original justice; a state of harmony and original spiritual balance. The state of original sin is the state in which human nature was left after the Fall from the state of innocence as a result of the first sinful act. That is why original sin is characterised as the state of original imbalance or injustice, drawing the parallel between the health and sickness of the body and the health and sickness of the soul. In the words of Aquinas, this state of original sin is ‘an inordinate disposition, arising from the destruction of the harmony which was essential

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to original justice, even as bodily sickness is an inordinate disposition of the body, by reason of the destruction of that equilibrium which is essential to health’ (quaedam inordinata dispositio proveniens ex dissolutione illius harmoniae in qua consistebat ratio originalis iustitiae, sicut etiam aegritudo corporalis est quaedam inordinata dispositio corporis, secundum quam solvitur aequalitas in qua consistit ratio sanitatis, i–​i i, q. 82, a. 1). According to Aquinas, habit takes two forms: the disposition which inclines psychological powers to an act, such as science or virtues; and the disposition of a complex nature by which it is well or ill disposed to something, above all when it becomes almost second nature, as often happens with sickness or health. Original sin is a habit in the second sense, and is opposed to actual sin. Actual sin is the work of the person who commits it and it stays in this person, while original sin is the work of the first parents, is incorporated in their nature and transmitted to their descendants. Given that death was introduced into the world by the act of original sin (Rom 5, 12), the awareness of finitude and death essentially belongs to the state of original sin. We could continue to describe this state by other existential notes, but it is not our subject here. What I do want to point out is the other happy expression of Aquinas, which complements original justice and could be used in other intellectual coordinates: languor naturae, languor of nature, weakness, prostration (i–​i i, q. 82, a. 1). So, Aquinas clearly determines the source of this original harmony and the cause of its privation. ‘Now the whole order of original justice’, he insists, ‘consists of man’s will being subject to God’ (Tota autem ordinatio originalis iustitiae ex hoc est, quod voluntas hominis erat Deo subiecta, i–​i i, q. 82, a. 3). As a result, ‘the cause of this corrupt disposition that is called original sin, is one only, viz. the privation of original justice, removing the subjection of man’s mind to God’ (Causa autem huius corruptae dispositionis quae dicitur originale peccatum, est una tantum, scilicet privatio originalis iustitiae, per quam sublata est subiectio humanae mentis ad Deum, i–​i i, q. 82, a. 2). The key terms for understanding the states of the innocence and original sin of humans are thus subjection and disobedience, as in the case of the angel’s sin. But to deal specifically with the human case, to try to recreate and understand the thoughts and decisions of our first parents, before and during their sin, we have to first examine the Thomist analysis of hubris, as I mentioned a moment ago. 2

General Pride and Special Pride

The distinction between hubris as a general sin and special sin runs through all the treatment of Aquinas in different contexts and related to different

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questions. Hubris as a general sin is spiritual in nature and is what we have already found in angels and men: non subdi, or sometimes, non serviam. I have tried to encapsulate its essence in a single term: insubordination. But this logical nucleus may be complemented and extended by the recognition of a variety of modes and degrees, to which I will now refer, such as infidelity, retraction and apostasy. Hubris as a special sin is moral in nature and Aquinas includes its essence repeatedly in a precise formula: disordered appetite for one’s own excellence (appetitus inordinatus propiae excellentiae). In the Summa Theologica, the treatment of this form of pride is included in the different treatises on moral virtues, above all in that on temperance, but also in those of prudence and strength. The distinction between the two forms of hubris is also key in De malo, q. 8. Saint Augustine had distinguished these two forms of hubris in very similar expressions: non adhaerere and perversae celsitudinis appetitus (De Civ. Dei xii, 6 y xiii, 13). Saint Thomas Aquinas cites the latter characterisation precisely, for example in ii–​i ii, q. 162, a. 1 ad 2. Augustine interprets original sin as an act of disobedience, following Paul (Rom 5, 19). It is well known that he writes with the heart and for the heart. Perhaps that is why he does not achieve the precision of Aquinas. The Augustinian wish to achieve truth through charity is touching, but it is perhaps more scientific, more Thomist, to take the opposite path: vision as the basis for love and beatitude. Seeing is believing. With respect to what we are dealing with, although it does not completely pave the way for us, it can be deduced, perhaps, that Augustine considers the first form of hubris to be a condition of the second: When the first human beings began to be evil, they did so in secret, and this enabled them to fall into open disobedience. For the evil act could not have been arrived at if an evil will had not gone before. Further, what but pride can have been the start of an evil will? For pride is the start of all sin. Moreover, what is pride but a craving for perverse elevation? For it is perverse elevation to forsake the ground in which the mind ought to be rooted, and to become and be, in a sense, grounded in oneself. This happens when a man is too well pleased with himself, and such a one is thus pleased when he falls away from that unchangeable good with which he ought rather to have been pleased than with himself. De Civ. Dei xiv, 13

Aquinas shares this idea, but will offer a more sophisticated interpretation of original sin, for which he will make use of a more elaborate reflection on the two forms of pride and their mutual foundation. If we wanted to express

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this distinction in the terms available in Spanish, it would be natural to use soberbia for the first (insubordination) and orgullo for the second (appetite for excellence). But the fact is that both terms are used in practice for the two types of pride. Before examining them, it is worth noting a distinction established by Aquinas in the first of these two types, which links directly to the state of original sin which we have just seen. By expressly raising the question of the origin of all sin (initium omnis peccati), Thomas Aquinas distinguishes not two, but three, forms of pride; the two we already know and a third which is closely related to the first: a certain inclination to disobedience or rejection of God, which precedes the corruption of nature (i–​i i, q. 84, a. 2). As is clear, this inclination is the state of original sin and appears here because Aquinas wishes to note that this state of original injustice is, in a sense, the origin of sin. But he adds immediately that not only this inclination but a fortiori the explicit rejection of God must appear as the origin of sin. And next he recalls Ecclesiasticus (initium omnis peccati est superbia, Sir 10, 15), noting that the wise man refers to pride as a disordered desire for one’s own excellence, given that he continues talking of the destruction of the proud kings by God. Thus, these three forms of pride—​insubordination, corruption of nature and appetite for excellence—​constitute the triple origin of sin. However, based on the sacred text it is difficult to know whether pride is the origin of sin or, rather, if sin is the origin of pride. Both the great Spanish edition of the Bible by Cantera and Iglesias and the English New Revised Standard Version translate this decisive verse of Ecclesiasticus (‘the beginning of pride is sin’) contrarywise to the Vulgate (initium omnis peccati est superbia). It is clear that in this case we need a helping hand from philology. The full text preserved of this book is the Greek translation of Jesus the Ecclesiastic, son of Sirach (A.D. 2nd Century) of his grandfather’s original Hebrew. Starting in the end of the 19th Century, fragments began to be discovered and a large part of the original has been reconstructed. The modern translations are probably based on a Greek text that is more stylised than the version of the Septuagint, from which the Vulgate comes, and perhaps they have made use of the original Hebrew of those passages. Philologists also inform us that the Hebrew term les, which tends to be translated as pride, means ‘one who mocks religion’. In any case, the Vulgate and modern editions are in perfect agreement, a few verses before this, with respect to another decisive element, ‘The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord’ (Initium superbiae hominis apostatare a Deo). As we know, this cannot be said to be an exclusively Judaeo-​Christian obsession: ‘húbris (hubris or arrogance) is truly the daughter of impiety’, says Aeschylus’s chorus

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(δυσσεβίας μὲν ὕβρις τέκος ὡς ἐτύμως, Eumenides, v. 534). In this state of complexity, I can only offer two things: 1. An expression of sincere humility: Haebreum est, Graecum est, non legitur. 2. A proud and corporate commitment: philology is essential to determining the letter of the Scriptures, but without philosophy we can’t open up its spirit. But first it is worth confusing the matter a little more. Together with the disposition against God and its updating, Thomas Aquinas introduces other modulations and degrees of spiritual pride, which he uses for the analysis of theological virtues, their species and parts, which also emerge at times in the treatment of the moral virtues. There are subtle but relevant differences between the forms of not inclining to God or separating from Him. The inclination or disposition to God of original justice is broken by only a small change in this inclination. And the change in inclination can adopt different forms or degrees, such as not submitting or insubordination, which following Aquinas, we use as the most generic (non subdi), turning to the other side (aversio), retrocession (retrocessio, recessio), infidelity (infidelitas), apostasy (apostasia), intellectual or volitional blasphemy (blasphemia), or hate (detestatio). These distinctions will be important at the time of explaining the type of disobedience inherent to man’s original sin and the differences with respect to the angel’s sin. Thus, the discussion of pride as the origin of sin leads us to an important and delicate question: the relationship between spiritual pride and moral pride; between hubris and pride in the mediaeval theological context, if I may put it like that. We have already seen Aquinas’s solution: that pride in all its senses is present in the origin of sin. Aquinas himself raises the objection that, as the wise man gives the aversion to God, which is a sin, as the origin of pride, then pride will not in turn be the origin of all sin. In the response to this objection is the clearest expression of the relationship between separation from God (spiritual pride) and disordered appetite for excellence and wealth (moral pride). The impiety of kings is the cause of this appetite. Spiritual pride is the cause of moral pride, as Saint Augustine said. Hubris is the cause of pride, ‘Apostasy from God is stated to be the beginning of pride, in so far as it denotes a turning away from God, because from the fact that man wishes not to be subject to God, it follows that he inordinately desires his own excellence in temporal things. Wherefore, here apostasy from God does not denote the special sin, but rather that general condition of every sin, consisting of its turning away from the eternal good’ (Apostatare a Deo dicitur esse initium superbiae ex parte aversionis, ex hoc enim quod homo non vult subdi Deo, sequitur quod inordinate velit propriam excellentiam in rebus temporalibus. Et sic apostasia a Deo

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non sumitur ibi quasi speciale peccatum, sed magis ut quaedam conditio gene­ ralis omnis peccati, quae est aversio ab incommutabili bono, i–​i i, q. 84, a. 2 ad 2; also De malo q. 8, a. 1 ad 1). Now, recognition of spiritual pride as a condition of moral pride does not prevent Aquinas from attributing some independence to moral pride and pointing to its influence on spiritual pride. This element is clear at least in two places: the treatment of infidelity in the Treaty on Faith (questions 1–​16) and the treatment of pride as a special sin in the Treaty on temperance (questions 141–​170), both in the secunda secundae. In the first case, with respect to the question of whether unbelief is a sin, Thomas Aquinas holds that it has its origin in pride, ‘Unbelief, in so far as it is a sin, arises from pride, through which man is unwilling to subject his intellect to the rules of faith, and to the sound interpretation of the Fathers’ (infidelitas secundum quod est peccatum, oritur ex superbia, ex qua contingit quod homo intellectum suum non vult subiicere regulis fidei et sano intellectui patrum, ii–​i i, q. 10, a. 1 ad 3). In the second case, after clearly pointing out that the object inherent to pride as a special sin is excellence itself, Aquinas notes that based on this, it acquires a certain generality as the origin of all sin and has the effect of removing prohibitions, as when man despises divine law out of pride, which is expressed by saying non serviam (Jer, 2. 20; ii–​i i, q. 162, a. 2). Well, in my opinion, Aquinas’s subtle and nuanced reflection on the relationship between spiritual pride and moral pride allows us to reach the following result without falsifying his thought. Pride as a moral habit is a disordered appetite for one’s own excellence. Pride as a spiritual habit is turning away or distancing oneself from God. This distancing is the general condition that enables a disordered appetite for excellence and this appetite may be directed at a variety of goods, giving rise to different special sins. In my opinion, the form in which spiritual and moral pride may be the basis for one another may be illuminated to some extent, by recognising certain degrees in the removal from God. In particular, the degrees established by Aquinas for apostasy may be used, based on the forms of union with God: by faith, obedience and religious life (ii–​i i, q. 12, a. 1 co). According to Aquinas, religious life may be abandoned without abandoning faith, i.e. one can leave a religious order and even transgress against some divine precepts without abandoning faith in God completely. Similarly, although a certain rejection of God (spiritual pride) is a general condition of disorder in the appetite for excellence (moral pride), this appetite has its own mechanisms and may lead to or feed back into spiritual pride, which in the final instance involves the negation and hatred of God. On the other hand, like general or spiritual pride, special or moral pride has its species, modes, degrees and parts. What is of greatest interest here is

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pride’s place in affective geography. Aquinas refers to vainglory, vain or inane glory, arrogance, boasting, presumption, ambition. Through spiritual pride, man turns away from the immutable good; through moral pride, he turns to mutable goods. This general appetite for excellence in mutable goods adopts a variety of means according to the different goods, so it functions as a general predisposition to sin rather than a particular sin. That is why, although many thinkers consider pride to be one of the deadly sins, Thomas Aquinas says that either it is not one at all, but rather the condition for all of them, or it is a deadly sin in one of its specialised versions, vainglory (inanis gloria). Rather than excellence, vainglory wishes to be convinced of its manifestation. Spiritual pride is the cause of moral pride and is the queen and mother of all vices. It is more eminent (principalius) that the different forms of cardinal sins (e.g. ii–​i i, q. 132, a. 4) and, in reality, is active in all of them. In the vices, as is the case in voluntary acts, a distinction is made between intention and execution. In intention, the end works as a principle and it is there that pride governs the general intention, whose execution lies in the hands of more specific dispositions. In reference to the seat of moral pride, it has been determined more precisely in its contrast with humility, as we will see below. However, its proximum genus, disordered appetite, allows us to make an approximation. As the study of humility makes clear, it is an irascible appetite, which must also be moderated by the virtue of temperance, although the main seat of temperance is concupiscent appetite. And on finding also in humility, as in pride, the distinction between spiritual and moral humility, we will see the sense in which the irascible, and therefore pride and humility, is also inherent to rational appetite. Finally, among the florid reasonings of psychological subtlety of Thomas Aquinas, in a more mundane sense, I will highlight the following gem. Hubris as arrogance is in conflict with truth. The arrogant man may not properly access speculative knowledge of truth, because he does not want to learn from God or from men. The arrogant man takes pleasure in his presumed excellence and disdains the excellence of truth. And even if he is capable of capturing certain hidden truths, observes Aquinas citing Gregory, he cannot relish them. He may know of them, but he cannot know how they taste (ii–​i i, q. 162, a. 3 ad 1). 3

Moral Humility and Spiritual Humility

Thomas Aquinas treats humility above all in the moral context, in opposition to pride as a special sin. And it is the treatment of moral humility which leads him to refer afterwards to spiritual humility. Moral humility is opposed to

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moral pride. If moral pride is the inordinate appetite for one’s own excellence, humility is the moderation of this appetite. Moral humility is the virtue that orders or tempers the appetite for the arduous or excellent. Moral humility regulates the appetite to find the reasonable bounds (which Thomas Aquinas calls right reason) and avoid disproportion or excess. That is why he identifies it with temperance itself. Now, the irascible appetite is also the seat of other habits, other virtues and other vices, whose relations with pride and humility are very illustrative. Inordinate or disproportionate appetite for the difficult or excellent is a vice—​ pride—​but the determined appetite for the great, when proportional and not inordinate, is a virtue—​magnanimity. The appetite for the great according to right reason is magnanimity or greatness of soul (ii–​i i, q. 161, a. 1). Moral pride and magnanimity are appetite for what is great, but they are opposed when pride seeks its own greatness in an inordinate way, while magnanimity aspires reasonably to great or noble things (ad magna), not necessarily its own. Thus, magnanimity and humility are not opposed, but complement each other, and both are virtues, as they regulate human actions by reason (magnanimitas non opponitur humilitati, sed conveniunt in hoc quod utraque est secundum rationem rectam, q. 161, a. 1 ad 3). Magnanimity is the virtue by which humans aspire to great things, without falling into excess. The contrary vice by which one does not aspire sufficiently to great things is pusillanimity, the smallness of the soul. Humility is the virtue which tempers an immoderate appetite for one’s own greatness. The contrary vice is pride. As with all the moral virtues, magnanimity and humility are regulated by right reason; in other words, they require deliberation and prudential judgement, weighted and wise, about the elusive line—​at times thin and even playful—​which separates the measured from the immoderate, what is reasonable from what is not. This judgement is the work of the virtue of prudence, intellectual virtue that is practical or directs actions. Although this is not the time to go into it, it is worth recalling that prudence and moral virtue mutually depend on each other, as any true philosopher knows—​i.e. any disciple of the Philosopher or the Theologian. Moreover, as is normal, the appetite for the great does not operate by itself, but is accompanied by an emotion. The term pride is used both for appetite for the great and for the concomitant emotion, both when it is measured and when it is immoderate, for both excessive pride and for magnanimity. The identification of hubris and pride is frequent in multiple contexts, but the intimate association between magnanimity and pride also goes back a long way. It is natural in Aristotle and Aquinas. As we will see, it is explicit in some modern philosophers, above all Hume, and is found in the basis of the general distinction in

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contemporary psychology between two forms of pride, for which the terms hubristic pride and proper pride have been created, as I noted in Chapter 1. There is also no lack of psychological pearls here. Saint Thomas Aquinas points out acutely that nothing prevents virtue and vice from arising from causes which normally produce the contrary. False humility takes many forms. One can be conceited, for example, with respect to one’s assumed humility, which constitutes a particularly grating form of pride: magna soberbia, according to the bishop of Hippo. Another may, says Aquinas, through a peculiar form of false modesty, refuse to recognise his greatness, deny his spiritual nature and consider himself of the same type as brutes lacking an immortal soul, like irrational cattle (iumenta insipientia, Ps 49, 13; ii–​i i, q. 161, a. 1 ad 1). It is hardly surprising that poor pride has also been imbued with the contrary judgement, as in the case of Nietzsche: the belief in immortality. Naturally, Aquinas also wonders about the place of humility in the construction of the theological virtues. First, he does not consider adequate the identification of humility with the spiritual Christian attitude in general, as in the case of many theologians, in particular Saint Augustine. Moreover, the contrast between pride and humility, which functions well on the moral plane, appears that it could be in some ways transferred to the spiritual plane. Well, precisely in establishing this parallelism, Aquinas finds the way of making the two things compatible. In the same way that spiritual pride is non-​subjection (non subdi), spiritual humility is, in a sense, the general subjection of man to God (subjectio hominis ad Deum, ii–​i i, q. 161, a. 2 ad 3). It is a case of submission not only of understanding, but also, and above all, of the heart. This is the sense in which Aquinas admits that it may be considered as the basis of Christian life (ii–​i i, a. 161, a. 5 co). Some Thomists miss a greater enthusiasm of Aquinas for spiritual humility and consider it an error that the longer treatment deals with moral reflection. But the truth is that, according to Aquinas, humility is the first theological virtue inasmuch as it expels pride, but it is not the most noble. The virtues of faith and charity are nobler than the virtue of humility, inasmuch as perfection is nobler than disposition. 4

Original Sin

The state of innocence is a state of harmony or original justice. As we know, this harmony essentially consists of the inclination of man to God, his creator. And as we also know, the act of original sin, the transgression of the divine order not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, involved the transformation of human nature into a state of original disorder or injustice,

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the state of original sin, which requires redemption. However, philosophy and theology do not offer us much information about the thoughts and dreams of our first parents before the fall. Luckily, the vibrant epic which appeared in the Dead Sea did do so and we will have to make use of it again. We know the thoughts of Adam in his state of innocence, above all through his dialogues with the archangel Raphael. Of the man’s woman, not yet Eve or mother of the human race, we know less (except for her tender affection for plants), until her dream and her decisive dialogue with the serpent. Raphael is sent to the Earthly Paradise to keep company with Adam, but also to remind him that he is free, the Devil is after him and he must respect God’s orders. The first couple invites the archangel Raphael to dinner. After dinner, when the woman goes to the garden, Adam tries to make the archangel calm his thirst for knowledge. Adam does not want to waste the archangel’s willingness, and the first thing he wants to know are the secrets of the firmament. This first impulse for knowledge coincides with the first intellectual navigation of Socrates and, as we will see, with that of the first Doctor Faustus, as soon as he sealed his pact with the Devil. The archangel understands the curiosity of the first man for the heavens, the Book of God, and he tells the story in some detail. Raphael tells Adam the story of the cosmic wars, the rebellion of Lucifer with a third of the celestial hosts, their fall and the creation of heaven, earth and paradise with its lord. The archangel assures the man that he is authorised to answer his desire to know, but within a certain order and limits: to answer thy desire of knowledge within bounds (Paradise Lost, vii, 119–​120). The appetite to know must be handled within measure, as in the case of eating: But Knowledge is as food, and needs no less | Her Temperance over Appetite, to know | In measure what the mind may well contain, | Oppresses else with Surfet, and soon turns | Wisdom to Folly, as Nourishment to Winde (126–​130). According to the archangel, the functioning of the stars and their movements allows a variety of complex theories and explanations. But it is not necessary to know everything. Man must not be concerned with hidden questions. He must leave them to God, to serve and fear Him. Paradise offers sufficient entertainment and the woman sufficient company. Heaven is too high for man to know what happens there. Man must be ‘wise in moderation’, ‘lowlie wise’. Sollicit not thy thoughts with matters hid, Leave them to God above, him serve and feare; Of other Creatures, as him pleases best, Wherever plac’t, let him dispose: joy thou In what he gives to thee, this Paradise

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And thy faire Eve; Heav’n is for thee too high To know what passes there; be lowlie wise. Paradise Lost viii, 167–​173

Adam describes to Raphael his first marvellous awakening on a bed of flowers in the Earthly Paradise, his feeling as a creature, his instant dominion of language, his conversations with God and his request for a woman. Adam, the man who was not born, but woke up an adult, accepts with docility Raphael’s invitation to moderate his appetite to know the operation of the heavens and the stars. And he thanks the archangel politely for his lesson, which teaches him to live in a simple way, without any thoughts or perplexities to interrupt the sweetness of a life which is the gift of God. The main wisdom consists of knowing what we come across in daily life. What lies beyond is smoke, emptiness and complete irrelevance (viii, 179–​197). However, Adam can’t avoid a second great question. As well as how the heavens function, he wants to know the origin of man—​his own origin. As he himself says to Raphael, it is difficult to know where one comes from. Man knows he has been created and placed in paradise by God, but he wants a little more explanation. As the archangel is not willing to do so and as he does not have anyone else to hand, he ends up invoking the sun. In his extensive journey from hell to earth in order to be the downfall of man, the fallen angel also turns to the sun and invokes it for some time. In the assembly of the demons after the fall, it was decided to seek vengeance against God through his new creature, given the impossibility of facing Him directly again. During his mission and before the vision of the sun, Satan recalls his life in heaven, his moment of pride, the uprising, war and defeat. As we already know, Satan also doubts a moment and feels his old nobility beat in his breast for an instant. But the angel’s sin is irremissible. Satan recovers himself and reaffirms for all time his option for evil, So farewel Hope, and with Hope farewel Fear, | Farewel Remorse: all Good to me is lost … Meanwhile, in his desire to know more about his own origin, Adam also invokes the sun, but with a very different attitude. Like Prometheus, Adam includes in his invocation the earth, the mountains, the valleys, rivers, woods and plains. He asks them where he comes from, recognising that he is not the creator of himself: Not of my self; by some great Maker then, | In goodness and in power præeminent (viii, 278–​279). The father of all human beings asks about his Maker, pre-​eminent in goodness and power. He wants to know how he can know him better, to adore him better and be happier. For her part, as she walks around the garden the woman finds a very different conversation partner: a rational serpent. As Luther said, although the Devil

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is not a learned doctor, it is a fearsome dialectic, which one cannot trust. Like Adam and Raphael, the woman and the serpent talk, which has always been the best way of passing the time for rational creatures. The woman asks the ophidian where his admirable reasoning capacity comes from and he tells her it is from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The woman recalls the divine prohibition, but approaches to look at and invoke this very special fruit. The reptile assures her that if they eat, they will be like gods, knowing good and evil, and the female sapiens expresses, among others, two considerations which are difficult to make compatible. First, the prohibition of a good, the prohibition of knowledge, can’t be binding. Second, in a state of ignorance of good and evil, how can we know that disobedience is bad? How can we fear God, death, the law or punishment? And, of course, in their decision to taste the fruit of the tree the similarity in Latin between the sapor (taste) and sapientia (knowledge) promised by the apple undoubtedly had an influence. This is why, in interpreting this episode, the Latin-​speaking Doctors of the Church do not rule out without further argument the role of concupiscence and gluttony. Now, for a right knowledge of the act of the original sin of our first parents, reason must come to the aid of myth. The most rational of theologians precisely tackles in his first approach the question of whether original sin was the sin of concupiscence. The questions dedicated specifically to vice and sin in the Summa Theologica are in the first section of the second part (i–​i i, q. 71–​ 89), where we have already read the explanations on the state of innocence and the state of original sin. By drawing the appropriate distinction, Aquinas here holds that the state of original sin is a state of concupiscence only materially, by the inclination of the will towards mutable goods, while formally, in other words essentially, it is the state of original injustice by which the will withdraws its inclination towards God and immutable goods. But this dimension of the state of original sin is not sufficient to also understand the act of original sin itself. Thomas Aquinas needs more tools for his careful interpretation; and because of this, he carries it out following analysis of the two forms of pride of the Secunda Secundae, which we already know. That the angel wanted to be like God appears clear, but as we saw, it is necessary to analyse it by the distinction between similarity by equality and similarity by likeness. Similarly, the fact that man wanted to be like God, or like the gods, appears clear, but the proposition has to be analysed. Above all, that man wanted to be like God is a way of speaking, because man, who was not lacking in restlessness, was content with the lowlie wisdom to which the archangel Raphael enjoined him. It was the woman who wanted to know more. Some reap what others sow. Despite his obstinate misogyny, on this key point

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the great John Milton had to stick to reality. It must be admitted that here the sacred story not only coincides with natural history, but also with the joke: Man is an intermediate state between the ape and woman. In the Thomist language it is said that man is a mulier occasionata. Whatever historical importance they have had, we do not have to stop to examine in detail other possibilities and can take it as read that the human sin in the Earthly Paradise was pride. Augustine and a long tradition interpreted the pride of original sin as an act of disobedience, following Paul (‘by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners’, Rom 5, 19). But Thomas Aquinas is not intimidated by authority, not only of the earlier Father of the Church, but of the apostle himself; and he expressly denies that the first sin was disobedience, ‘The first sin of our first parent, from which sin was transmitted to all men, was not disobedience considered as a special sin, but pride, from which then man proceeded to disobey. Hence the Apostle in these words seems to take disobedience in its relation to every sin’ (Ad tertium dicendum quod primum peccatum primi parentis, ex quo in omnes peccatum emanavit, non fuit inobedientia, secundum quod est speciale peccatum, sed superbia, ex qua homo ad inobedientiam processit. Unde apostolus in verbis illis videtur accipere inobedientiam secundum quod generaliter se habet ad omne peccatum, ii–​i i, q. 105 a. 2 ad 3). Thus: amicus Paulus, amigus Agus, sed magis amica veritas. As we know, Aquinas distinguishes two forms of pride. There is general or spiritual pride, by which human beings do not submit or withdraw their inclination to God; and a special or moral pride, by which human beings have an inordinate appetite for their own excellence. Well, contrary to what we may have thought, and contrary to everything which could be expected, Thomas Aquinas holds that, at base, the act of original sin of human beings in the Earthly Paradise was rather of the second type. The great theologian combines with unusual naturality piety and reason and pursues with all its consequences the sacred thread of rational argument. How much would those of us dedicated to philosophical analysis like to be in the shadow of his shadow! In fact, Aquinas recalls that the serpent said to the woman, first, ‘you will be like gods’, and then, ‘with knowledge of good and evil’. In accordance with his analysis, the first statement must be interpreted in light of the second. The angel wished to be like God by likeness in power, as if he were the creator, and for Aquinas (we will not return to the difficulties of this point), this is equivalent to wanting to reach beatitude not by the work of God, but on one’s own. In contrast, the woman wished to be like God by likeness not in power, but in knowledge. ‘But the first man sinned chiefly by coveting God’s likeness as regards knowledge of good and evil, according to the serpent’s instigation, namely that by his own natural power he might decide what was good,

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and what was evil for him to do; or again that he should of himself foreknow what good and what evil would befall him’ (primus homo peccavit principaliter appetendo similitudinem Dei quantum ad scientiam boni et mali, sicut serpens ei suggessit, ut scilicet per virtutem propriae naturae determinaret sibi quid esset bonum et quid malum ad agendum; vel etiam ut per seipsum praecognosceret quid sibi boni vel mali esset futurum, ii–​i i, q. 163, a. 2 co). Aquinas adds that, in addition, the human also sinned like the angel, by trusting in his own strength. The woman did not try to make herself as God either by equality or likeness, but wanted to know herself what is good and what is bad, without God having to tell her. Hence the interpretation of Aquinas, ‘Man’s first sin consisted of his coveting some spiritual good above his measure: and this pertains to pride. Therefore, it is evident that man’s first sin was pride’ (primum peccatum eius fuit in hoc quod appetiit quoddam spirituale bonum supra suam mensuram. Quod pertinet ad superbiam. Unde manifestum est quod primum peccatum hominis fuit superbia, ii–​i i, q. 163, a. 1 co). Or, as he explains further in the third answer to the objections in this same question, ‘The desire for knowledge resulted in our first parents from their inordinate desire for excellence’ (appetitus scientiae causatus fuit in primis parentibus ex inordinato appetitu excellentiae, ii–​i i, q. 163, a. 1 ad 3). But, as we have already learned—​and this is decisive—​an inordinate desire for excellence is special pride, moral pride, here specified as intellectual hubris or pride. Thus, in the analysis of Thomas Aquinas, the original sin of humans was not so much a spiritual sin as a moral sin, in other words, a moral fault. The original sin was not impiety, but the desire for knowledge. The original sin is the original virtue. Quod erat demonstrandum. 5

The Implications of the Thomist Interpretation

The Thomist solution for the understanding of original sin or virtue has its consequences. First, on philosophy and poetry. Reason at times has to rein in passion. Following Paul and Augustine, the modern poet Milton eloquently affirms that the sin of the first parents was disobedience. He expressly points to disobedience as the theme of the poem in the summary of the first book and in its initial verses. But the philosopher demonstrates that this disobedience was the result of an inordinate appetite for knowledge. There is a key difference between the different reasons for disobedience. But if we look a little more closely, Milton’s poetry really recreates the reality of things and demonstrates clearly that Eve’s motivation was curiosity or a thirst for knowledge. The poet says that Eve’s sin was disobedience tout court, but shows that it actually consisted of the curiosity which motivated it. The philosopher Aquinas can’t

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allow himself these ambiguities and has to call things by their name. If I may cite two characters who will appear later on, on one occasion Doctor Johann Faustus recalls that when conversing with the spirit on condemnation, the latter insists that among those condemned there were great differences, ‘because not all sins are equal’. Neither did the mediaeval poet take on the Thomist interpretation. Despite the historical proximity, and although in his verses many of Aquinas’s ideas take on life, on this point the great Dante does not reflect his thought and only expresses his saintly indignation before Eve’s boldness or ardimento, ‘where earth and sky obeyed, a female, alone, and just then fashioned, could not bear to stay beneath any veil, under which if she had humbly remained, I would have felt those ineffable delights sooner and for a longer time’ (Purgatory 29, 25–​30). It is well known that poets lie a lot. When they don’t lie, they often don’t know what they are saying. When they don’t get what they say right, sometimes they get what they show right, as in the case of Milton. When they are not right either in what they say or in what they show, it is better to look for poetical truth in wine, children or crazy people. Poets believe that problems disappear with an exclamation or a nice rhyme. Of course, it is absurd to reproach Dante for this slip-​up, given that he was no more than a poet. If he had been a philosopher, he would have had to be more careful. In any case, although he was simply following inherited ideas, his vision and poetic genius had an enormous influence on later thought and iconography. When narrating the descent of Jesus to the netherworld, Dante states that he brought back with him Adam, Abel, Moses, Abraham, David, Isaac, Jacob, Rachel and many others. He includes Adam, but not Eve (Inferno 4, 52–​63). Christian iconography has been faithful to this image. I don’t know if any particularly lucid artist will have preferred to follow Aquinas and paint the escape from hell and the glorification in heaven of our first mother. Second, the Thomist solution also has implications on the seriousness of the sin. This seriousness can be understood, of course, in two ways: on the type of sin or the circumstances of the place, person or time. It is clear that the former is essential and principal. According to Thomas Aquinas, the sin of the first human beings was not more serious than other human sins by its kind. Although pride is the biggest of sins, the pride of denying God is greater than that of aspiring to a likeness with God with respect to knowledge, ‘For though pride, of its genus, has a certain pre-​eminence over other sins, yet the pride whereby one denies or blasphemes God is greater than the pride whereby one covets God’s likeness inordinately, such as the pride of our first parents, as stated’ (Etsi enim superbia secundum suum genus habeat quandam excellentiam inter alia peccata, maior tamen est superbia qua quis Deum negat vel

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blasphemat, quam superbia qua quis inordinate divinam similitudinem appetit, qualis fuit superbia primorum parentum, ut dictum est, ii–​i i, q. 163, a. 3 co). Given the circumstances of place, person and time (the Earthly Paradise, the first parents and the origin of the times), the sin was very serious in some way (secundum quid), but not very serious in the absolute (simpliciter). Thomas Aquinas made clear that spiritual pride is worse than moral or intellectual pride. Denying God is worse than the immoderate appetite for knowledge. The sin of the angel is worse than the sin of the woman. According to Aquinas, the order of perfection of beings involved in the original sin or virtue is, from greater to lesser: the angel, man, woman, the serpent and the apple (ii–​i i, q. 165, a. 2). As we have seen, and leaving aside the serpent and the apple, the seriousness of the disorder or excess is inverse, but slightly altered: man with his average knowledge, woman with her aspiration to a greater wisdom and the demon with its aspiration to supplant God. Before the fall, man settled for a lowlie wisdom, but woman had the audacity of wanting to know (sapere aude). The history of thought will in the future deal on more than one occasion with this decisive episode. Thomist order and penetration will allow us to address with security and confidence other approaches that are also enriching, but more confusing, which do not always enjoy the perspicacity of Unamuno, ‘And thus it was the curiosity of Eve, of woman […] that occasioned the Fall and with the Fall, Redemption’ (Tragic Sense of Life, Chapter 2). In any event, the expulsion of our parents from Paradise was tasked not to a sweet angel like Raphael, but to a martial one like Michael. Although Adam and Eve were disarmed, Michael commissioned some cherubim to protect the gate, above all to prevent any assault on the tree of life which could provide them with some type of immortality or incorruptibility. At their exit, we have no news of the thoughts or words of Eve, but we do of the latest conversation of Adam with Michael. Docilely, Adam showed himself regretful and thankful. He easily recovered the aspiration to an average wisdom, which Raphael had inculcated in him. The archangel Michael reaffirmed him in it and recalled that not all the stars and the ethereal powers may be known, and all the secrets of nature may not be revealed. But, unexpectedly, Michael urged Adam to overcome his sadness caused by abandoning the Earthly Paradise and be happy for the happy end (as Milton xii, 605 calls it) to their stay. And he assured him that he was carrying within him a paradise much happier than the Earthly Paradise they abandoned. It is difficult to believe that the archangel Michael would have allowed to make a commentary of this type if it had not been by express commission from his Lord. In addition, the archangel’s commentary appears to accept as the truth a small insinuation of the evasive serpent to Eve, hidden in the web of the

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ophidian’s demonic and adulating words. Lucifer, the most beautiful angel, experienced as a provocation the order of submission to the Son, the double submission. The prohibition on the first parents to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was without doubt another provocation. By the former, God made clear His power. But Satan himself recognised that the second provocation was of a different order when he said to Eve: ‘Perhaps the Lord is not full of anger with this transgression, but rather praises your virtue and your audacity’.

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The Four Stages of History

From the point of view of pride, four stages of history can be distinguished: they are situated in the periods between eternity, the creation of the world, the fall of man, redemption and the final judgement. These stages are a simplification both with respect to those recognised by Saint Augustine in the City of God, and those determined by science. As is well-​known, the latter proposes something like an explosion from nothing and the gradual evolution of the exploded nothing by natural selection, until the emergence of Homo sapiens and the extinction of our star. According to Nietzsche, compared with all time, the period between the fall or invention of knowledge and the freezing up of the sun will not be more than a minute. But it will be the most hubristic and fraudulent time in universal history. Allow me to note that the central role of Judaeo-​Christian religion and the simplification of the historical stages accepted by this book do not reflect any type of favouritism; they are in fact required by the subject of our research. The Greeks are proud and pride and humility are key factors in the history of the Jews and Christians. In other parts of the world, they are not as obsessed with these things and the human condition is seen from other points of view. In the two first stages, the driver of history is the dialectic of pride and humility, first of the angels and then of human beings. In this chapter, we are going to examine the role of our emotions in the third stage of history. It is true that in this third stage, more elements begin to appear little by little, in particular the primacy of infrastructure and the interaction between the forces and relations of production. However, at no time does the dialectic of pride and humility perform anything but a decisive role. Between eternity and the creation of the world, the determining factor is the pride of the angel in the face of the requirement of submission to God. Excessive pride or inordinate appetite for excellence is here a truly spiritual appetite—​as could not be otherwise in the case of pure spirits. Between the creation of heaven and earth and the expulsion from the Earthly Paradise, the driving force of history is the pride of man, or rather woman, in the face of the requirement of submission to God. As we have seen, the interpretation of this second case is much more delicate; but in the end, the lógos of Thomas Aquinas and the myth of John Milton allow us to reach the enlightened

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_008

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conclusion with full confidence. Pride or appetite for excellence is here basically (simpliciter) appetite for knowledge. And it is only derivatively, or in some way (secundum quid) insubordination or disobedience to God. The moral and intellectual pride of human beings is added to the angel’s spiritual pride. In the third stage of history, the role of pride and humility continues to be core. Fourteen generations separate Adam and Eve from David, and another fourteen separate David from Jesus. Many things occurred during this time, but we can only refer to a few, always related to the issue we are occupied with. As we can’t deal with everything at the same time, we will first deal with these first twenty-​eight generations and then with what comes later. The basic difference with respect to the previous period is the reproduction and multiplication of human beings. In addition to the relations between God and the angel (first stage) and God, the fallen angel or demon and man (second stage), we now have to add the relations between human beings. The relation between God, the Devil, man and between men determine the different types of pride, hubris and humility. To the spiritual pride of the angel and the intellectual pride of human beings, we have to add material pride and humility and relations of power and justice. 2

The Two Pillars of the Old Testament

The Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible and the deuterocanonical writings) is vast and complex. The books which compose it are varied and come from many different periods. In a single book, philologists recognise a variety of sources and layers, often also from different times, as well as different hands, which have grouped together a variety of materials or retouched certain passages with theological or doctrinal intent. Naturally, such heterogenic material does not provide uniform ideas on many questions and there is evolution and even contradiction in the treatment of a number of issues. If I am not being too daring, I would say that two great ideas stand out from this textual magma. Many elements of the Old Testament can be seen through the prism of these two ideas, which adopt a variety of forms and constitute the two great requirements presented repeatedly by God to human beings. These two demands are piety and justice. Both are decisive for our research into pride. Before dealing next with the piety and justice in the Old Testament and its relation to pride, it may be useful to look at a brief text from Deuteronomy in order to straighten out our ideas. Just a few verses contain, in a surprising and condensed way, many of the elements through which we can describe and examine piety and justice.

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Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. deut 10, 16–​21

The circumcision of the heart is not an original aspect of the Sapiential Books, still less so of the new law of the New Testament. In contrast to the most archaic ritualism, omnipresent in the Pentateuch (the Five Books) or the Torah (the Law), at the very heart of the old law is recognised the interior attitude of the spirit through the most beautiful image, the circumcision of the heart, which will repeatedly be used by Paul of Tarsus. Although the circumcision of the foreskin was also practised by other Semite peoples, such as Egyptians, Moabites and Ammonites, in the history of the Jewish people it functioned from very early on as a mark of identity that contrasted with such uncircumcised peoples as Assyrians, Babylonians and Philistines, and as a sign of the Covenant established between God and His chosen people. Circumcision of the flesh represents the external racial and religious identity, while the circumcision of the heart or spirit represents the internal religious attitude, piety or purely spiritual submission. Its negation is religious or spiritual pride, which we already know from the angel (non subdi). Together with the circumcision of the heart, the Old Testament also includes a recurring image for religious attitude and recognition of the Lord: the inclination of the neck. It is a quite servile image, which tends to appear negatively, referring to its absence, in the expression ‘stiff-​necked’. The people, the leader or simply the individual of the stiff neck is one who does not incline it before God. Sometimes, this image is accompanied by an expression originally referring to the lack of docility of the herd: ‘stubborn shoulder’ (Nehemiah 9, 29). The hardening of the neck, disobedience, is accompanied by the conceit of the heart. The key phenomenon for the whole future history of the people of Israel is the successive hardening and softening of the neck. That is why the dialectic between pride and humility constitutes the driving force of its history. Many authors and revisors of the Old Testament explain and interpret the different historical events in terms of the submission and disobedience of the leaders and of the people of Israel to their God, whether in the form of the seal and

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breaking of the Covenant, the adoration of idols or the return to the piety of the Fathers. The second pillar of the Old Testament is justice, which in this unique text is accompanied by love. According to philologists, the justice and love of the Torah are to a large extent the work of the reviewer of Deuteronomy, but this does not mean they do not form an integral part of these inspired sacred works, as legitimately as the rest of the textual layers. In the short paragraph we have quoted, the justice of God is explained in the phrase ‘who is not partial and takes no bribe’ and turns expressly on the protection of widows and orphans, while love is referred directly to strangers. God loves the stranger and encourages the Hebrews to do the same. This exhortation is a particularly happy one here, as other places in which the old law includes love of those close to us appear to restrict it to love between the Israelites, ‘You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord’ (Lev 19, 18). The text of Deuteronomy we are following includes not just the correction of ritualism, but also nationalism. God accompanies the exhortation to love the stranger with a universalising reason, ‘You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt’. Thus, in the Torah itself we already find some of the threads that weave together the interior attitude as opposed to ritualism, universalism against religious nationalism and love for one’s neighbour or fraternity, which are at the very heart of Christianity. Of course, these are only sketches, and interiorisation, universalisation and fraternity will experience times of greater and lesser presence in the development of the religion of Israel. Let’s focus on two things. There are not only differences between the old and new law, but also continuities, as the theologians point out by following Jesus, ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill’ (Mt 5, 17). And piety and justice are the two pillars of the Old Testament, both in the Torah and beyond it, as we will see in more detail. 3

The Exclusivity of the God of Israel

In the above text of Deuteronomy, the demand for piety expressed by the circumcision of the heart and the inclination of the neck is accompanied by two other characteristic elements: exclusivity and the terror of Yahweh. With respect to exclusivity, the polytheistic background against which the religion of Israel developed appears in this text: Yahweh is the God of gods and the Lord of lords. The people of Israel, like all peoples, construct its identity vis-​à-​vis

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other peoples; and an essential component of it is their God. In the beginning, the superiority of the god of Israel over other gods involves recognition of these other gods. This is demonstrated in many passages. If there had not been other gods, considering Yahweh superior to them would have no meaning. But little by little, the superiority became transformed into exclusivity. The gods of the foreign peoples switched from being inferior to being false, to not being gods. In the words of the great philologist Ángel Sáenz-​Badillos, author of the notes to these books in the great edition of Cantera and Iglesias, the exclusivity of Yahweh is that of the ‘central original mandate’ of the Decalogue of the Covenant delivered to Moses, the greatest prophet, who died receiving a kiss from God, both in its ethical (Ex 20, 1–​17; Deut 5, 7–​21) and ceremonial (Ex 34, 17–​26) versions. Apart from exclusive, the God of Israel is ‘powerful and terrible’. The terrible nature of Yahweh is manifested both to His people and to His enemies and it is particularly notable in the books which narrate the conquest of the promised land following the flight from Egypt (Joshua, Judges). Without doubt, these narrations match the historical moment and reflect Israel’s struggle for survival and identity, as well as that of other peoples. But given the projection of these historical books beyond their time, the fact is that the readers of the Old Testament across the ages have inevitably been struck how the jealousy and exclusivity of Yahweh, the God of Israel, are expressed so cruelly towards its enemies. There are numerous orders to slit the throats of and slaughter all the inhabitants (men, women and children) of the conquered enemy cities, in particular the Canaanites and Philistines. Naturally, the anger and cruelty of the God of Joshua can be viewed with more charitable eyes, as ideograms or symbols to express the experience of the numinous in obscure and dark times among primitive peoples (Otto 1917). Now, what interests us is the piety and submission before Yahweh, insofar as it is relevant to the history of pride. The jealousy of Yahweh and the military demand for submission and exclusivity are forms of crude piety which do not appear appropriate to spiritual devotion. But the Old Testament is big and also offers friendlier forms of communication between the faithful and their God, with relevant implications for spiritual pride and humility. The God of Israel directs history. In fact, Yahweh constantly reminds his chosen people of the sense of all the events and situations which he makes them experience: slavery and the flight from Egypt; the forty-​year crossing of the vast and terrible desert, with scorching serpents and scorpions; the conquest and the settlement of the promised land, flowing with milk and honey. I made you follow this journey, says Yahweh, ‘to humble you, testing

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you to know what was in your heart’ (Deut 8, 2). This theological vision of history is clearly present in the Old Testament and also refers to later events. The destruction of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, the fall of Jerusalem and the exile in Babylon will be motivated by the conduct of Israel and will also have the aim of testing its heart. But inside its tough and crude exterior, the demand for faithfulness conceals a more profound spiritual element, which we already know and which gives meaning to the appeals to the heart. Although he had his moment of doubt, in his pride the angel affirmed himself as his own creator. On awakening in paradise, the first man felt he was a creature, and neither his wife’s pride nor his own ever led him to reject this feeling. Similarly, in the third stage of history, Yahweh subjects his people to tough tests so that its heart does not become conceited: in other words, so that they do not believe that they achieve their successes and conquests by their own forces or as deserved by justice. Spiritual humility is the feeling of belonging to God and spiritual pride is its negation. Two very graphic expressions for the link between God and his people are matrimony and fear of God. When the relationship between God and his people is described in the language of matrimony, turning away from God is classified as prostitution and the spouse feels a natural jealousy (Lev 20, 2–​ 5). As regards the fear of God, we see how it already appears in the text of Deuteronomy which can serve us as a guide, ‘You shall fear the Lord your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear’. The fear of God signifies the religious attitude, spiritual humility, love of God. Although it is already found in the Torah, it is a notion that is much more present and developed in the Sapiential Books, above all in the Psalms. Fear of God is the start of wisdom. A venerable character who can help us think about pride and humility in the Old Testament is old Job. Of course, in terms of the saintly Job, popular Spanish wisdom attributes to him the virtue of patience (as is also the case in other languages and cultures influenced by the Bible), but it is even more on the wrong track than with respect to Solomonic decisions. However, on pride and humility, Job does have much to teach us. As I commented with respect to the angel’s sin, which occurred in an instant, the decisive element of the psychology and spirit of old Job also refers to an instant. Despite all the evils he suffers by the work of Satan, and with the consent of God, against his property, his servants, his family and his own body, the decisive element is that Job did not curse God for an instant. That does not mean that he did not confront Him. Job supports all kinds of calamities and atrocities, ‘the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’. But to call that ‘patience’

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means completely adulterating the nature of the facts and gives the impression that we are talking about something else. Job gives voice to sobbing words (palabras asollozadas), in the beautiful expression of Fray Luis de León. But in no way does he accept an absolutely disproportionate wrong that he does not understand. Job refuses to assume the concept of retribution on which his friends insist repeatedly. Job confronts God. Naturally, there have been readings which here see an inadmissible pride. But the distinctions we have managed to outline thanks to the magisterial work of Thomas Aquinas can help us here. The pride of Job is the moral and intellectual pride of knowing for oneself what is good or bad, without anyone imposing it, without accepting any chicanery, and of presenting it to God himself. But despite everything, Job has his feet on the ground and he does not fall prey to the spiritual pride of believing himself God or cursing God. Job’s humility is double. First, there is no cursing God. And second, he subjects himself (subdi) to Him in the end, after a marvellous theophany, ‘things too wonderful for me, which I did not know’ (Job 42, 3). Theophany is an irrational outcome, one inherently religious, which does not provide an answer to his pride, but deep down blesses it. The theophany blesses Job’s pride and appetite for knowledge, just as the archangel Michael appears to bless, in the end, Eve’s pride and appetite for knowledge. Above, we conjectured that Michael probably did so on God’s command. In any event, in the most delicate moments of interpretation and speculation, there seems to be no way of freeing ourselves from philology. There are various versions of the text of the book of Job. Philologists call them H (Hebrew original), G (Greek translation, called the Septuagint) and J (Latin translation by Saint Jerome of Stridon, or the Vulgate). In the line ‘If mortals die, will they live again?’ (Job 14, 14), H makes it a question but G doesn’t (‘they shall live again’). Thus, H expresses the fact of future life as a question or a desire, while G affirms it as a fact. As many other passages show, the immortality of the soul is not a doctrine of the Hebrew source (around 400 B.C.), but of later deuterocanonical texts and times, but none the less inspired. The difference means that none other than the next life and its location and precise sense lie in the hands of … (oh, dear) the philologists. With respect to Job’s pride and humility, in general G avoids the questions made by Job to God and tends to highlight his humility. Philologists, to whom we owe so much, add that for this reason, ‘G tends to present him in a more favourable light than H’. But philologists do not explain why a Job who asks fewer questions to God appears in ‘a more favourable light’.

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Orphans, Widows and Foreigners

The second spectre that haunts the Old Testament, the second great obsession of the God of Israel, after the inflexible demand for faithfulness, is an equally inflexible demand for justice and assistance to the oppressed and those in need. It is a God, according to our favourite text, who is ‘great, mighty and awesome’. But at the same time, the text continues, ‘who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing’. I think that a careful and attentive reading of the Old Testament can demonstrate, with complete clarity, this dimension of the God of Israel, the God of armies, cruel, jealous and at times genocidal. The Old Testament is a varied set of documents, historical and inspired at the same time, dating from different periods. The demands for justice and assistance to those in need is not inherent to a period, stretches across time, in the recurring formula of widows, orphans and foreigners. ‘Father of orphans and protector of widows | is God in his holy habitation’, says the psalm (Ps 68, 5). As we have seen, the felicitous text of Deuteronomy is even expressed in the language of love, ‘You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt’. Love of one’s neighbour and stranger is not a creation of the New Testament (cf. Prov 3, 27–​35). Although concern for the oppressed is generalised, it is particularly common in the prophets, both great and small. It is obvious in Isaiah, but I will here cite only a couple of minor prophets. Amos (8th Century B.C.) supports the oppressed and denounces injustice forcefully, but I would like to highlight another unique aspect of his message. In his identification with the people against the powerful, the prophet makes clear that he does not prophesise because he wants to, but because he has a calling; and he does not use his special skills to live from handouts or from others. The expression is ‘seer … earn your bread’ (Am 7, 12). The sense of the expression is that the prophet, like the poet Hesiod, lives from his work. The prophet Micah (also 8th Century B.C.), of whom we only have a few pages, is implacable not only against the exploitation of the poor for the enrichment of the rich, but also in his derision of the false prophets, hired by the rich for their religious security and to tell them what they want to hear. Although he is not unique, my personal opinion is that the prophet Micah is the one who most deserves the honour to be called the Red Prophet. He also sums up as no other the two pillars of the Old Testament which we are examining, ‘He has told you, O mortal, what is good; | and what does the Lord require of you | but to do justice, and to love kindness, | and to walk humbly with your God?’ (Mic 6, 8).

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The meaning of the demand for justice is illustrated at times as not treating people unfairly or not accepting bribes. Although The Old Testament does not provide a theory of justice, these indications are clear with respect to their sense: ‘for there is no perversion of justice with the Lord our God, or partiality, or taking of bribes’ (2 Chr 19, 7). Concern for the oppressed and those in need is repeatedly illustrated by reference to the three groups already mentioned: widows, orphans and foreigners. To the demand of the God of Israel for spiritual humility is added his demand for material humility. And to the condemnation of spiritual pride is added the condemnation of material pride. Yahweh repeatedly expresses the censure of the powerful and the exaltation of the meek. Now, pride and humility are precisely the elements that link the two pillars we have recognised in the Old Testament: piety and justice. In order not to lose precision, we have to recur once more to Saint Thomas of Aquinas. As Doctor Angelicus explains lucidly, the pride of human beings, their disordered appetite for their own excellence, is basically fed by two things: knowledge and power. Appetite for knowledge plays the leading role in the second stage of history, which runs from the creation to the fall, while appetite for power takes the lead in the third, that of the twenty-​eight generations from Adam and Eve to Jesus. In this third stage, the exaltation of the humble and the needy, of material humility, is accompanied by censure of power and material pride: pride in the goods of the world. Pride and humility allow to link and tie the two pillars of the Old Testament, piety and justice, together, because pride of power leads both to impiety and to injustice. It is easy for political power and military successes to puff up the hearts of rulers with conceit. The Old Testament includes innumerable examples of the pride and impiety of Israeli and foreign kings and rulers. In contrast, the examples of piety are all those of Israel. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon responsible for the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews (586 B.C.) repeatedly represents the pride of power which must be humiliated. ‘No one besides me’ says Isaiah on Babylon (Isa 47, 10). ‘Is this the exultant city | that lived secure, | that said to itself, | “I am, and there is no one else”?’, exclaims Zephaniah about Nineveh, the inspirer of the famous hymn Dies irae dies illa by Thomas de Celano (8th Century) (Zeph 2, 15). And the oracles of the prophet Ezequiel against Tyrus and the pride of his prince are also eloquent. Because your heart is proud and you have said, ‘I am a god; I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas’, yet you are but a mortal, and no god,

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though you compare your mind with the mind of a god. ezek 28, 2

In contrast, the highest praise is when the ruler combines power and piety. King David does not turn aside to the left or right from the plans of his God and his prayers are infused with humility. His son Solomon did not ask God for wealth, but rather intelligence and a heart to understand and apply what is right; and he preserved them until he turned to the idols under the influence of his foreign wives. The wisdom of the kings David and Solomon is divine wisdom for the administration of justice. In fact, Solomonic wisdom is actually prudential wisdom inspired and nurtured by piety. The Spanish language does not capture this sense when it calls Solomonic a decision ‘which tries to satisfy all the parties in a conflict equally, with the aim of equanimity’ (drae). This sense comes from a faulty interpretation of the solution given by the king to the dispute between two women who claimed the maternity of the same child: to cut it in half and give one half to each. This decision is Solomonic in our sense because it consists of cutting one’s losses. But it is Solomonic in a more noble sense because the wise king identified the real mother in this way, to whom the baby was given: it was the woman who immediately waived her right to the half so that the creature should live with the other. In addition, among the last kings of Israel, before the exile to Babylon, is Josiah, widely praised for his piety and for doing the right thing in the eyes of Yahweh, without letting himself be turned aside to the left or right. The interweaving of piety and justice, impiety and injustice, is constant, and occurs in many contexts. The pride of the enemy and his lack of compassion for the exiles led to the intervention of Yahweh against Babylon and the freedom of its people (Isa 47). But this interweaving is not only in the military sphere. In the Sapiential Books, and in particular in the Psalms, the just and the impious are repeatedly opposed as contradictory. The exaltation of the humble and the humiliation of the powerful takes on great dramatic importance when it refers to elements of nature, which happens in two ways. First, there is allusion to the natural phenomena when it comes to expressing eloquently the excess of the man who forgets his condition. Antiochus Epiphanes believed, in his pride, that he could navigate on land, walk on water and give orders to the waves of the sea (2 Macc 5, 21). And the Proverbs rebuke and exclaim as eloquently as the Greeks. Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in the hollow of the hand?

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Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is the person’s name? And what is the name of the person’s child? Surely you know! prov 30, 4

These exclamations are not exclusive to the Greeks and Jews, ‘Who, my friend, can climb to the heavens?’ exclaimed king Gilgamesh, who saw furthest, to his colleague Enkidu, the Mesopotamian Adam (in an ancient version of the epic, tablet 3). At this point, Babylonian precision contrasts with a certain Greek imprecision. The king of Uruk was no more or less than ‘two thirds god, one third man’, while their character of demigods appears to attribute to the Greek heroes around fifty per cent of each nature. Despite this, or rather, perhaps, because of it, as a result of his greater divinity, the king demonstrated at times like this a level of humility unknown to the Greek heroes. Second, in his jealousy, Yahweh puts a stop not only to human pride, but also to the pride of the elements themselves, such as the height of trees and mountains. In his theophany before Job, God narrates his complaints to the sea, ‘and said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, | and here shall your proud waves be stopped”’ (Job 38, 11). The prophet Ezekiel transfers the humiliation of what is high and the exaltation of the humble to the trees themselves, ‘All the trees of the field shall know | that I am the Lord. | I bring low the high tree, | I make high the low tree; | I dry up the green tree | and make the dry tree flourish. | I the Lord have spoken; | I will accomplish it’ (Ezek 17, 24). In this case, the wisdom of the Spanish language does not fail, ‘We say the sea becomes proud (ensobervecerse) when it is stormy and agitated by the winds’ (Covarrubias, 1611). Here we leave behind the first three stages of Judaeo-​Christian history and move on to the fourth, which goes from redemption to the last judgement. However, I am going to postpone the treatment of early Christianity until the arrival of its biggest enemy. Its stellar appearance will allow us to enrich our treatment with a strong element of contrast and maintain in the background the historical perspective in favour of a truly philosophical vision. Meanwhile, the lack of moderation of human beings again adopts new historical forms, but none as dramatic and idiosyncratic as the human mania or madness for knowledge. Like the appetite for excellence in general, the appetite for specific excellence in knowledge comes in two ways: one ordered and the other disordered. Ordered appetite for knowledge is enlightened drive, illustrious enlightened pride. We already know that it comes from the original sin or virtue of

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Eve, our first mother, and that it was distinguished with great care by Saint Thomas Aquinas from the primal sin of the angel, the insubordination to the higher being. With this it received a final interpretation, however much the Age of Enlightenment aimed to attribute to itself (with some cheek) both its performance and its interpretation. And disordered appetite for knowledge is the Faustian drive, the demonic Faustian hubris.

­c hapter 7

Pride and Knowledge 1

The Devil’s Crony

Doctor Faustus was a real person. Georg Faustus was probably born in the city of Knittlingen (although his History mentions Roda in Thuringia), and lived between around 1480 and 1540. Give or take a year, he was the exact contemporary of Martin Luther. There is not much information about his life and person, but some of it must be true. He was well-​educated and even seems to have held a university teaching post. It is said that when lecturing about Homeric heroes he made their ghosts appear. But above all, he was known as a magician, trickster, necromancer and travelling astrologer. We still have the bill for a horoscope commissioned from him in 1520 by his namesake the bishop Georg of Bamberg; the municipal records of his expulsion from the city of Ingolstadt in June 1528 and the order prohibiting him from entering Nuremberg in May 1532. There is no record of Luther and Faustus having met in person, but both the leader of the Reformation and his disciple Philip Melanchthon mention him in their writings. Doctor Faustus was proud of his nickname of the ‘Devil’s crony’, but we do not know whether it was given him by Luther himself, who used it extensively to refer to him. The following are the editions I quote from: Füssel and Keutzer, Haile, Jones, Del Solar. The legend of Faustus continued to grow in the 16th Century. It included a pact with the Devil, an infinite number of magical excesses and a tragic end. Luther held that the Devil had taken him to hell. The name Faustus (lucky) was not infrequent. It appears that at some stage Georg’s name was confused with that of Johann Faustus, an acquaintance of Melanchthon during his years as a student in Heidelberg. Over the years, some of his exploits were probably written down and expanded by a variety of hands, with the legend finally reaching its written form with the anonymous publication in Frankfurt in 1587 of The life of Dr. Faustus, the renowned sorcerer and black magician; how he sold himself to the Devil for a specified term, what curious exploits he devised and practiced during that time, until he finally received his well-​deserved reward. The title or title page does not end there but adds the purpose of writing the History: ‘For the most part gathered from his own posthumous papers and published as a terrible and horrific example and a sincere warning to all the overweening, inquisitive and ungodly’. This book was printed by the Lutheran publisher Johann Spies and is known as the Faustbuch. In the late 19th Century, a slightly shorter © Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_009 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC ​​B Y-​​N C-​​n d 4.0 license.

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manuscript version of the exploits of Doctor Faustus was found in the library of the Duke August of Wolfenbüttel, which appears to predate the Faustbuch. According to its most recent publisher, the Wolfenbüttel manuscript (wolfenbütteler Handschrift) and the text published by Spies are independent but come from a common source (Haile 1995: vi–​vii). The Wolfenbüttel manuscript (wm) includes three chapters which are not in the Faustbuch published by Spies, and the Faustbuch includes many phrases, paragraphs and whole episodes that are not in the manuscript. According to Haile, the original core of the legend can be distinguished in the manuscript, together with the later additions of different copyists (Haile edition, 1965: 11–​13). Many of the additions in the published text are theological and didactic in content, with admonitions to the readers to avoid Faustus’s example. The recent critical edition of the Faustbuch not only includes the chapters of the Wolfenbüttel manuscript not found in the Spies edition, but also some additions from editions published shortly after the original; one by Spies himself in 1587 and another dating from 1589 (Füssel and Keutzer edition, 2006). Curiously, this critical edition is based on a copy of the first edition, which is also preserved in the library that gives the manuscript its name. There is an early English translation from 1592, known as English Faust Book (efb), the one Marlowe read. It has additions, omissions and altered chapter numbers from the original German (gfb). I mainly quote gfb text, taking it from Jones’ critical edition of efb (1994), who highlights additions and gives omitted gfb text in notes. When chapter numbers differ, I give both: gfb/​e fb. Once more, we can only know what we are talking about if we follow the wise and patient indications of philologists, editors and translators, to whom any gratitude we show is insufficient. When comparing this first version of the myth with the subsequent creations of Marlowe or Goethe, I will refer to all the initial elements, which come almost entirely from the Wolfenbüttel manuscript and the Spies edition of 1587 (gfb), with the general name of Faustbuch. The Faustbuch was published anonymously. According to socialist authors such as Gorki and Lukács, its author is the people (Baron 1989). For this reason, it is classified as a popular book or people’s book (Volksbuch). However, despite the later addition of fragments and even whole episodes, the story of Doctor Faustus itself presents a unity and one or two lines of argument which make the work appear that of a single author, though based on legends that had been passed down. Before examining the specific features of the versions and subsequent recreations of the story of this unusual character, we should first look in detail at the basic components of the narration included in Faustbuch, the first published version of the myth. In my opinion, this is how we will then be able to determine the common and diverse elements of the most important literary

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versions and their key milestones: the anxiety, curiosity, pact, excesses, adventures and fate of Doctor Faustus. I will order the presentation so that I can then present my proposals on the nature of Faustian pride and the condemnation and salvation of the crony Doctor. Given the subject of our research, we are particularly interested in Faustus’s desires and their motivation. From this point of view, we can distinguish in the first part of the story narrated in Faustbuch several fundamental links. Although in Faustbuch they follow each other quickly, it is a good idea to make these initial elements explicit in order to determine where future Faustuses coincide and where they differ. First, there is the presentation of Doctor Faustus and his basic desire. Second, his first requests to the spirit he manages to call up. Third, the response and conditions laid down by the spirit to attend his requests. Fourth, the pact. There follow the important questions Faustus asks of the spirit and the great journeys resulting from them, to hell, heaven and the court of the powerful. After this, a variety of other episodes occur, above all with a magical content; and then the final outcome. Nearly always, two narrative threads appear to coexist, which at times occur in parallel and at others interlace: the story of the character himself and the pious or theological commentaries by the author, whether one person, or a number of them. Next, let’s see how events unfold until the pact is executed. In the next section, we see the subjects of Faustus’s curiosity or thirst for knowledge. First, Johann Faustus is presented to us as a highly intellectual youth. His parents and uncle, whom he lived with during his studies, are absolved of all his later excesses. The young Faustus makes a brilliant impression among professors and students in his exams and easily wins his doctorate in theology. The narrator also alludes to the aid provided by the young Faustus for the pro bono work of his father as a doctor. But he calls him above all a Speculator—​a term which tended to include magic and alchemy—​who dedicated himself night and day to search diligently for ‘the secrets of heaven and earth’. From the start, the narrator emphatically notes the sinful nature of this desire, although he does not adduce any other grounds for this than Faustus’s lack of moderation. According to the narrator, the young Doctor Faustus knew the Holy Scriptures and the Law of Christ, according to which anyone who knows the will of the Lord and does not follow it is doubly cursed. These admonitions appear to point to the final outcome and make the reader expect more comments and edifying morals. Next, there is a narration of Faustus’s invocation of the spirits (Chapters 2 and 3). Unlike the later versions of the story, in which Faustus’s spiritual concerns are described and developed extensively in these initial pages, the Faustbuch presents his petitions very directly. The Doctor asks for total obedience from

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the spirit, which may not conceal from him any information that he may require in his studies and must always answer his questions truthfully. In the Faustbuch, this initial spirit, which only later will be called Mephistopheles, is not the Devil himself (the fallen angel Lucifer) but his emissary or minister, so he lacks the necessary authority and must transmit Faustus’s requests to the Lord of the East. The third moment in time we have distinguished is the spirit’s response to Faustus’s questions (Chapter 4). Before telling him the answer of his Lordship Lucifer, the minister Mephistopheles asks Faustus to explain his desires again. As we have just seen, Faustus has asked for two things: obedience and information; and the former he appears to want to use at the service of the latter. These desires, expressed in this way, no doubt do not appear sufficiently perverse; so, after he is asked to repeat them, the narrator attributes an additional motivation to Faustus. This observation clashes somewhat with the previous storyline and belongs to what we might call the theological thread of the story: ‘Doctor Faustus gave him this answer, though faintly (for his soul’s sake) that his request was none other but to become a devil, or at the least a limb of him’ (Chapter 4). In any case, the spirit accepted Faustus’s requests, but asked for something in return. He would grant Faustus’s intellectual desires for a limited period (twenty-​four years), after which Faustus would become his possession. Faustus had to sign the pact in his own blood; and he had to renounce the Christian faith. Although Faustus’s explicit answer has not come down to us, signing the pact implies acceptance of these conditions. What the narrator of the Faustbuch does indicate, though without much analysis, is that the basic reason for doing so is pride or hubris. What moves Faustus is pride, arrogance and transgression, with no fear of pledging his soul. In very graphic form, the narrator observes that Faustus perhaps deceived himself thinking that the Devil was not as black as he was painted, and that hell was not as hot as people said. So we arrive, in fourth place, to the drafting of the pact itself. Unlike the case of more recent Faustuses, the Faustbuch and other early versions, such as that of Marlowe, give us a literal rendering of the pact between Faustus and the Devil. It is worth transcribing it here (Chapter 6): I Johannes Faustus, Doctor, do openly acknowledge with mine own hand, to the greater force and strengthening of this letter, that sithence I began to study and speculate the course and order of the elements, I have not found through the gift that is given me from above, any such learning and wisdom that can bring me to my desires: and for that I find that men are unable to instruct me any farther in the matter, now have I Doctor John Faustus, unto the hellish prince of Orient and his messenger

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Mephostophiles, given both body and soul, upon such condition that they shall learn me and fulfill my desire in all things, as they have promised and vowed unto me, with due obedience unto me, according unto the articles mentioned between us. Further, I covenant and grant with them by these presents, that at the end of 24 years next ensuing the date of this present letter, they being expired, and I in the mean time, during the said years, be served of them at my will, they accomplishing my desires to the full in all points as we are agreed, that then I give them full power to do with me at their pleasure, to rule, to send, fetch or carry me or mine, be it either body, soul, flesh, blood or goods, into their habitation, be it wheresoever: and hereupon, I defy God and His Christ, all the host of heaven, and all living creatures that bear the shape of God, yea all that lives; and again I say it, and it shall be so. And to the more strengthening of this writing, I have written it with mine own hand and blood, being in perfect memory, and hereupon I subscribe to it with my name and title, calling all the infernal, middle, and supreme powers to witness of this my letter and subscription. john faustus, approved in the elements, and the spiritual doctor

Thus, the original written version of the pact sealed between Doctor John Faustus, in his own name, and the spirit Mephistopheles, representing the devilish Prince of the East, is explicit. Doctor Faustus sets out his motives in the recitals: after having exhausted his intellectual and spiritual capacities, he still does not understand; it is his desire to investigate more in depth, speculating about the elements; humanity does not teach these things. In exchange for information, instruction and the obedience of Mephistopheles for twenty-​four years, he will deliver his possessions, his body and his soul. Faustus defies all living creatures, all celestial spirits and the whole of humanity. When he gave him Lucifer’s answer, Mephistopheles had said that he would be available to make all his wishes come true, and in the written pact he specifies his service and obedience for a period of twenty-​four years; however, when he writes the pact in his blood, Doctor Faustus mentions only one desire: learning. 2

The Curiosity of Doctor Faustus

The adventures of our pair start with desires somewhat more prosaic than knowledge, such as gluttony and lust (Chapters 9 and 10). Surprisingly, after the heights they have reached, Faustus and Mephistopheles turn to theft. Although it is Faustus who has hired Mephistopheles, and although they can steal easily

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and with impunity, the narrator includes the charming detail that the doctor began to receive a salary from the Devil of twenty-​five coronas a week. The narrator also says that the annual wages were one thousand, three hundred a year, also noting along the way that the Devil granted Faustus three months’ holiday a year—​like yesteryear university professors, but unpaid. But after these minor details, the motivation which led Faustus to seal his pact with the Devil is set out in all its clarity. In a language worthy of the best universities of the time, Faustus and Mephistopheles undertake a series of talks and discussions which are truly interesting. Faustus’s curiosity or thirst for knowledge is directed above all at religious matters, such as Lucifer’s fall and the nature of hell. Faustus and Mephistopheles have a number of conversations about these matters, but there comes a time in which Faustus sees that Mephistopheles will not inform him further. He then dedicates himself to astronomy and astrology. The author of the History narrates the expertise and authority he achieved both in the knowledge of the stars and in the art of foretelling the future, which reflects the fame of the historical Faustus. The two discuss the organisation and movement of the heavens, winter and summer; and then the comets, stars and thunder. But there then comes a time when Faustus relapses into sadness and melancholy. Mephistopheles examines his motives tactfully and Faustus tells him that the contract has proved very expensive for him and is not meeting his expectations. Astronomy is not enough for Faustus. When Mephistopheles asks him to confess what is really worrying him, Faustus ends up telling the truth about the real objects of his curiosity: the creation of the world and the origins of man (Chapter 22; the latter changed into ‘why man was made after the image of God’ in efb, Ch. 19). And then, as the narrator explains, Mephistopheles tells a big lie: that the world and man do not have an origin or beginning but have existed for all eternity. Faustus is not convinced by this theory, as it contradicts Genesis, but at least it gives him the entry point to start asking the questions that interest him. Thus, leaving to one side the idiosyncratic interest of Faustus in hell and demons, to which they will return in their discussion, his conversations with Mephistopheles deal with issues that are very similar to those which occupied our father Adam and the archangel Raphael in Earthly Paradise. Perhaps for this reason, Faustus has been called ‘the new Adam’. As is well-​known, Jesus of Nazareth is also considered ‘the new Adam’ for other reasons. I consider that felicitous expressions like the above, or like ‘new Prometheus’, ‘new Babylon’, ‘second Orpheus’, must be accompanied by some clarification as to their meaning, which at times we miss. In this second phase, Faustus’s curiosity is worth not only new conversations, but also new experiences. The two then undertake three major trips: to

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hell, to heaven and to the courts of the Pope and the Turkish emperor. These journeys follow the model of the great educational journeys, such as that undertaken in his youth not much later by another John we all know, the great Milton. Faustus asks for the first trip with entirely theoretical objectives: ‘to see hell and examine its basis, attributes and substance’ (Ch. 24; from ‘examine’, omitted in efb). The second trip takes place at the initiative of the Prince of the East, who sends a carriage drawn by dragons to Faustus’s window, which Mephistopheles will also board, to show him the sky and the stars. Faustus’s attitude is of interest for our research, as he agrees to undertake the trip exclusively ‘upon this condition, that I may ask after all things that I see, hear or think on’ (Chapter 25/​21). And in his visits to the Pope and the emperor, they make extensive fun of them. The narrator makes clear his attitude to the turbulent world of the Christian churches by the list of the vices they find in Rome: vanity, boastfulness, pride, rashness, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication and adultery. So great was the impiety of the Pope and his rabble that Faustus exclaims: ‘I thought that I had been alone a hog or pork of the Devil’s, but he must bear with me yet a little longer, for these hogs of Rome are already fatted and fitted to make his roast meat’ (Chapter 26/​22). Faustus’s indignation is nevertheless accompanied by a touch of jealously, as until that time, as the narrator notes later, he felt ‘the only cock in the Devil’s basket’ (Chapter 51/​47). No doubt the subjects of Faustus’s curiosity and the destinations of his trips are worthy of great intellectual and existential adventures. According to the author of the theological theme of the narrative, which sometimes coincides with the theme of adventure and sometimes not, these subjects are too much for human knowledge and the destinations too much for human travel. Faustus had an immoderate aspiration to know about or visit them, and, according to the ideology the narrator wants to transmit, this immoderation can only be due to impiety and familiarity with the Devil. But whether immoderate or not, his curiosity is expressed with precision and at times with a clearly systematic purpose. Unfortunately, the answers given by Mephistopheles do not tend to be at the same level as the questions asked by Faustus. Some of them, as shown by the editors, are literally taken from contemporary manuals and not always updated. More than anything, Faustus directs his curiosity at what is closest to him—​ his speaker—​and asks what type of spirit he is. Mephistopheles defines himself as ‘a flying spirit: ruling beneath the heavens’ (Chapter 11/​10). This answer gives rise to the question about Lucifer’s fall. Mephistopheles does not explain any more than the hierarchies into which angels were divided before the sin committed by the most beautiful (seraphim, cherubim, and thrones) and confuses the rebel angel with none other than the archangel Raphael. When

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Faustus asks him other questions, Mephistopheles offers him the conventional information on the names of the demons and their areas of jurisdiction. The systematic nature of Faustus’s desire for knowledge can be seen above all in the way he asks, on more than one occasion, about the nature and the special features of hell. The general question on hell is specified in questions so precise and well-​put that they appear to have been made in the hope of a truly analytical treatment, with a distinction between the general question and its articles: Primum, secundum, sed contra, respondeo dicendum quod, ad primum, etc. Surprisingly, on some occasions the winged spirit which rules below the heavens maintains the analytical tension and answers each of the specific questions in order. But at other times, Mephistopheles gets lost, consults his manual and does the best he can. At any event, when examining Faustus’s curiosity, we should remember its scientific dimension and the analytical aspect of his proposals. The first time Faustus becomes interested in hell, he asks Mephistopheles ‘about the nature, location and creation of hell’. If that were not enough, he insists, ‘and how it really was’ (Chapter 11/​12). On the second occasion, he inquires about ‘the judgement, rule, power, attempts, tyranny and temptation of the Devil, and why he was moved to such kind of living’ (Chapter 15/​14). On the third, he makes a special effort at systematisation and Mephistopheles answers him respecting the order and numbering of Faustus’s questions: 1. What hell is. 2. How it has been created. 3. The laments and sufferings of the reprobates. 4. Whether a condemned man can ever recover the grace of God and be rescued from suffering in hell. This time, Mephistopheles tries to cool down the curiosity of Faustus, we don’t know whether it is because it appears excessive to him or due to his own exhaustion. But Faustus’s response is immediate and determined: ‘I will know, or I will not live, wherefore dispatch and tell me’ (Chapter 16/​15). On this occasion, it wasn’t necessary to remind Mephistopheles that they had signed a contract. Another time, and at his own initiative, Faustus undertakes his long-​awaited journey to hell, led by three dragons, during which he observes all kinds of prodigies. At a certain time, he launches himself headfirst into the abyss and there tries in vain to hold on to some of the contemned souls, but they dissipate in his hands. When he can no longer bear the thunder, tumult, fog, sulphur, smoke and fire, frost and heat, he begins the return ascent to the heights on the back of the snake Beelzebub (Chapter 24/​20). Mephistopheles and the narrator insinuate that this trip was a dream induced by the Devil.

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Only on one occasion, during the trip to the heavens and stars, does Faustus express some kind of tiredness or unease produced by this unfettered appetite for knowledge. After having contemplated how the stars, day and night function close-​up, and having seen the spirits which are beneath the heavens, the History of Doctor John Faustus informs us tactfully that he saw ‘more than he had desired’ (Chapter 25; omitted in efb). Faustus experiences a single moment of intellectual unease, but two of spiritual unease. We have just seen one: when he lists his concluding questions on hell, his last one is, ‘whether the damned souls might get again the favour of God and so be released out of their torments or not’ (Chapter 16/​15). Mephistopheles answers no. And shortly after this Faustus suffers his second moment of spiritual weakness, when he opens his heart to his confidant and asks, ‘if thou wert a man created by God (‘in manner and form as I am’ in efb), what wouldst thou do to please both God and man?’ (Chapter 17/​16). After a short explanation, highly condensed, on divine grace, Mephistopheles answers that he would honour him and observe his law, with the hope of deserving eternal glory, quite the opposite of what Faustus has done so far. Faustus then asks him if he thinks he would be too late and Mephistopheles says ‘yes’. Faustus says, ‘Leave me in peace’. And Mephistopheles answers, ‘Then give me some peace from your questioning’ (Chapter 17; changed in efb, Ch. 16). As readers will recall, the spiritually curious had less surly guides available to them in mediaeval times. Dante’s curiosity was always answered with politeness and courtesy by Virgil, Beatriz and Matelda. The former two explained many things to him, but it is true that they also kept quiet at particularly difficult moments. There were things they did not clarify or justify, limiting themselves to showing them. There was nothing for Dante to do but disguise and limit his curiosity and anxiety as best he could. Meanwhile, Matelda offered herself expressly to answer all his questions: ‘And you who stand in front and begged me, say if you wish to hear more, for I have come ready for your every question, as much as will suffice’ (Purgatory 28, 82–​84). But a time also came in which Matelda stopped talking and Dante could only look. The three who accompanied him were completely silent when the decisive moment arrived. In all, I believe it can be said that the mediaeval Dante was better accompanied and had more friendly teachers than the modern Faustus. 3

The Plurality of Faustuses

In critical literature, texts are carefully studied in their historical and cultural context. In the case of the Faustbuch, we have to examine it in relation to the

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witch-​hunts of the time, the condemnation of magic, the distinction between intellectual magicians and illiterate witches and Luther’s obsession with the personification of evil in the Devil. With respect to the central character of the book, there is some controversy about modern individualism in general and renaissance individualism in particular, the appetite for knowledge and religious constraints. According to some critics, to project onto the original Faustus any idea with the slightest hint of the Enlightenment is to commit an anachronism. His doctrinal content can only be examined based on the pious morality of the text, which was very common in the Protestant world: the Devil is lying in wait for us, and being led astray from the divine mandate may have catastrophic consequences (Krönecker, Baron, Strauss). However, other experts claim that the spirit of the original Faustbuch can already be seen in the author’s understanding of his character and a certain ambiguity not only towards the alleged perversion of Faustian desires, but also towards his indisputable condemnation (Brown, Watt). In my opinion, the historical and ideological classifications such as pre-​ modern theodicy, renaissance spirit or the de-​Oedipalised individual must be used carefully and only as a result of exhaustive and balanced analyses; otherwise, we may excessively restrict texts that offer a wealth of ideas and trends which are worth examining in themselves, without any premature categorisation. Faustus’s three initial requests to the spirit, which we have just seen, already demonstrate his curiositas, the desire for learning, Wissbegierde, or whatever we want to call it. The most traditional term for this universal desire made Unamuno exclaim, ‘But is there anyone who is content with this? Pure curiosity! —​to call this load that wellnigh crushes our heart pure curiosity!’. Without classifying it too much or trying to base it on relations of production of the time, we have seen how this desire operates across the story of the character narrated in the original Faustbuch. A little further on, we will deal in more detail with the relationship between curiosity and impiety. Now we are going to use these moments we have highlighted in this story as a guiding thread to establish the comparison with other major versions, which introduce wealth, complexity and perhaps contradictions into the myth. Although we will not describe them in strict order or detail, I would like to recall what these moments are: the presentation and desires of the character, the requests to the spirit, the spirit’s response, discussions, trips and adventures, lamentation and the conclusion. The other Faustuses I will deal with are those of Marlowe, Goethe and Mann. The latter two are much more extensive and include more things. Naturally, this is just a starter, and it is also worth looking at Calderón, Lessing, Byron, Valéry, Pessoa and Bulgákov. But my knowledge is limited and my ignorance meticulous. And, as far as I know, the

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musical Faustuses do not add any great psychological complications and are based almost exclusively on the character created by Goethe. To investigate pride, what is important are the issues we have already discovered based on the first version, although I will briefly allude to another. The presentations of the character and his concerns are richer in the later Faustuses. Marlowe and Goethe do not include biographical details and immediately express with eloquence the exhaustive journeys of the character across the branches of knowledge: philosophy, medicine, law. Philosophy is odious and obscure, says John. We cannot know anything, says Heinrich. Knowledge is suffering. The doctor of the Faustbuch yearns to know and puts magic at the service of this aspiration. In contrast, the Faustuses of Marlowe and Goethe add an additional turn of the screw: they already have the knowledge and that is why they make use of magic. As well as referring to the more theoretical disciplines, both allude, like the original Faustus, to important practical achievements in the field of medicine. For Marlowe’s Faustus, these achievements are nothing, as he has not managed to make human beings live forever or bring them back to life after death. In his madness, Goethe’s Faustus gives us to understand that his medical contributions may have produced more harm than good. Both are dedicated to magic, not so much to know more, but to go beyond the realm of knowledge. In Mann’s novel, there are no equivalent theatrical sermons, but there is an infinity of hidden messages and allusions to the Faustbuch, both explicit and concealed. To go no further than his youth, the young Adrian Leverkühn goes to live with his uncle, is outstanding in all subjects at school and begins his university studies of theology. Moreover, immoderation and pride are crucial in the presentation of all the Faustuses, as we will now see. The oldest, the Faustbuch and Marlowe, also include curious references to the scope of the human mind. According to legend, Johann Faustus carried out a kind of casting among the demons, to see if any could move as quickly as the human mind (Haile edition, 1965: 6). And in his initial desires, Marlowe’s Faustus imagines a power, honour and omnipotence which extend as far as the mind of man. To distinguish the different Faustuses, we will refer to them below by their creators, or, to make the expressions less complex, by their first names, which are all different: Johann, John, Heinrich and Adrian. The old Faustuses, that of the Faustbuch and Marlowe (Johann and John), talk and negotiate with an emissary of the Devil, the spirit called Mephistopheles, the minister of Lucifer, who also appears in person later on. According to the Spanish translator, the most accepted hypothesis for the name Mephistopheles is perhaps that it derives from three Greek words: ‘the negative particle μη, the substantive φῶς (light), and the adjective φιλὴς (one who loves); in other

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words: one who does not love the light’ (Historia: 206, n. 18). The person who speaks to Heinrich, Goethe’s Faustus, is also called Mephistopheles, but is the Devil himself, not his minister. The person who speaks to the composer Adrian Leverkühn, the Faustus of Thomas Mann, is also the Devil, who is not given another name. The sequence of requests, responses and pact which we found in the original Faustus is not as simple in the later ones. Marlowe’s Faustus includes a peculiarity: the Devil does not demand his soul; it is offered by Faustus, who gives it up initially rather crudely and self-​confidently. John considers himself to be sentenced to eternal death because of his thoughts against God. He offers his soul to Lucifer through Mephistopheles in exchange for twenty-​four years of voluptuousness (i, 3, 82–​99). As we have seen, Johann only requires one thing: real answers to all his questions. In contrast, John requires the service of Mephistopheles to provide him with everything he wants, always doing his will and seeing to whatever he asks, such as killing his enemies and helping his friends. Heinrich and Mephistopheles are involved in many higher-​level subtleties. If Heinrich asks for something on the path towards the pact, it is to satisfy a desire of his on some occasion, even if it is only one, which appears completely impossible to him because Mephistopheles cannot know what humans desire. In his explicit conversation about the pact, Adrian Leverkühn does not appear to ask for anything from the Devil, but, rather, to reject all his insinuations; but on recalling this conversation, he admits that his whole life has served as an incitement and call to the Devil. The pacts made by Heinrich and Adrian were not documents written in blood like those of Johann and John, although Heinrich’s blood served to seal his. We have already seen the pact between Johann and Mephistopheles. John’s pact reads as follows: On these conditions following: First, that Faustus may be a spirit in form and substance; Secondly, that Mephistophilis shall be his servant and at his command; Thirdly, that Mephistophilis shall do for him, and bring him whatsoever; Fourthly, that he shall be in his chamber or house invisible; Lastly, that he shall appear to the said John Faustus at all times in what shape or form soever he please; I, John Faustus of Wittenberg, doctor, by these presents do give both body and soul to Lucifer, prince of the East, and his minister Mephistophilis; and furthermore grant unto them that, four-​and-​twenty years being expired, the articles above written being inviolate, full power to fetch or carry the said John Faustus, body and soul, flesh, blood, or goods, into their habitation wheresoever. john faustus ii, 1, 95–​112

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Johann and John deliver the same object in exchange for different things. In reality, all the Faustuses deliver the same thing to Lucifer: their souls. And all of them do it in exchange for different things. An examination of these differences will allow us to formulate a proposal on the nature of Faustian excess and hubris. Based on this, and taking into account the disputes and adventures narrated in the different works, we will be able to reflect on the final destiny of the friend and crony of Mephistopheles. Johann delivers his soul for knowledge, John for caprices, Heinrich for peace and Adrian for art. We already know Johann’s desires. John’s appetite is less specific. Although he is the most determined Faustus when it comes to arranging the pact, and the only one who directly proposes to deliver himself body and soul, his demand is the least specific: that Mephistopheles should bring him everything he wants. Although the Faustian desire always appears to have something unspecific and impossible to satisfy, the other Faustuses are given at some time and in some way not only an intuition on what they want but also the experience of knowledge, love or recognition. It is John’s soul that suggests all these experiences in the blandest form in which there does not appear to be any lasting effect. As the Spanish translator notes, John does not really desire either love or power; his de-​Oedipalised desire remains completely indeterminate. When Mephistopheles perceives in Heinrich this desire without an object he asks, ‘What do you want, the moon?’ (10180). At this, Heinrich reacts and focuses his mind, at least for a time, on wealth and power, something that appears impossible for John. Heinrich and Adrian do not write down their pacts with the Devil, but they are no less real for that. Heinrich already knows everything and dedicates himself to magic in the search not for new knowledge but for new experiences. Knowledge and life mature on different trees. In fact, Goethe puts into the mouth of Wagner and of the student who visits Mephistopheles the appetite for knowledge in order to parody it. ‘All is what I’d like to know’, says his assistant (i, 601). ‘I’d like to be a proper scholar and have a comprehensive knowledge of what there is on earth and in the sky, of nature and all the branches of learning’, says the student (i, 1898–​1901). Mephistopheles sarcastically refers him to the phrase: ‘Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum’ (i, 2048). When he is presented to us initially, Heinrich wishes to uncover the forces of nature; however, his basic unease is not intellectual, but existential. He declares himself free of all anxiety to know. In their later dialogues, Faustus and Mephistopheles test and lead each other on with what each could offer the other or expect from the other. Heinrich yearns to see one of his desires fulfilled, and the pact is subtle and conditional. Mephistopheles will make Heinrich live through all kinds of experiences and, if in any of them he finds a moment’s peace, the Devil

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may take possession of him. Heinrich delivers his soul for a moment’s peace. Heinrich yearns for this peace and will search for it, but he knows that the poor Devil cannot approach the human heart. Meanwhile, Adrian Leverkühn delivers his soul for musical creation over the same period as Johann and John: twenty-​four years. Goethe was much more generous, and Heinrich not only became thirty years younger to be able to court Marguerite but enjoyed a long life and died at the age of one hundred. The price of the pacts of all the Faustuses is the same, the highest that can be imagined: the soul. But the conditions until the end are not the same, and those imposed on Adrian Leverkühn are particularly tough. In exchange for some amazing works and his recognition as a creative artist, the highest destiny that a human being can aspire to in this life in the eyes of professor Serenus Zeitblom, his friend and biographer, the composer will be condemned to utter solitude. Practically everything else will be barred from him, particularly love. After having learned their paths until the pact and the differences between the different pacts signed by the Faustuses and the demons, we will have to again consider the plurality of Faustuses to examine their excess and destiny. 4

Excess and Pride

The two features that best define the personality of Doctor Faustus, as described in the Faustbuch, appear to be impiety and curiosity or desire for knowledge. Other features of his personality, such as lasciviousness, which the narrator makes much of at times, whether or not it is relevant, or even something as idiosyncratic as magic, are secondary with respect to the first two and may be understood through them. My hypothesis is that the Faustian drive may be described adequately by the conjunction of impiety and curiosity. This conjunction is not immediate, and we must begin by examining it in Johann, the first Doctor Faustus, the main character in the Faustbuch. We already know that the Faustian drive was manifested later in other forms, from which I have selected three particularly significant ones. If we can list the new manifestations, as far as possible, through some adjustments to the original conjunction of impiety and curiosity, we will have found a certain unifying thread in the plurality, for the intelligence of excess and Faustian pride. To make sure that this aim is not classified as excessive from the start, let me say that I will try out my own thesis, rather than commenting those of Saint Thomas Aquinas, for the simple reason that we do not have any thesis by Doctor Angelicus on the sin of Faustus, who lived after him. Naturally, we

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can always adapt his reflections on similar heresies. But I am convinced that the Saint, who apart from being a theologian was a philosopher, knew how to appreciate, and perhaps even foster, the desire of disciples to think for themselves in matters of reason, provided that they did so within a certain order. It is no accident that we have found in Saint Thomas, of all people, some understanding with respect to Eve’s thirst for knowledge in Earthly Paradise, which led her to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For the present case, it is essential to recall that, as against the bulk of Christian tradition, which points to disobedience or concupiscence, Saint Thomas attributes the original sin of the woman to a disorderly thirst for knowledge and not to impiety or disobedience. Only thanks to Doctor Angelicus can we precisely distinguish the sin of the angel and the sin of the woman. Naturally, our progress in the study of the Faustian drive (‘Faustus function’ as the translator of Marlowe puts it) will in some way be tentative and we will not be able to proceed as securely as we would with the guidance of Aquinas. Nevertheless, the fact that we do not have specific analyses by Aquinas of the Faustian sin does not mean that we cannot use his tools. As I do not have any need or desire to begin my thoughts from nothing, I am happy to use the proposals we have been sketching in the course of our research, supported by the work of Aquinas, such as the distinction between the angel’s sin and the woman’s sin and between spiritual pride and moral pride. As perhaps readers will already suspect, an analysis of the Faustian drive as a combination of impiety and curiosity means conceiving it as an articulation of the angel’s sins and the woman’s: Satanic sin and human sin. Faustian sin, pride and excess are new, but the material with which they are woven are old. My proposal is to understand the Faustian drive in its different manifestations as an articulation of these two elementary sins, with decisive variants in priority and order. From the start, I feel there are two narrative threads in the original Faustbuch, which is simpler than the later ones: the story of the character and theological commentaries. Although at times they appear to run in parallel, we will now look at the way in which they are woven together. These two threads correspond to the curiosity and impiety which I pointed out above. It is important to remember that this is not the only way of seeing it; there is a clearly alternative interpretation, which appears to be that of the narrator himself—​which perhaps he would agree with explicitly if we asked him about it. According to this interpretation, the metaphor of two threads is inadequate, because Faustian curiosity and impiety must not be conceived separately. Faustian curiosity is in itself a sacrilege. In fact, to highlight this, the splendid Spanish edition translates with a composite term the basic notion to characterise the

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Faustian drive: Fürwitz. It is not curiosity and sacrilege, just one thing: sacrilegious curiosity. That is not my proposal. My idea is that there are two different things and that we can recognise them as such. Of course, Faustus’s curiosity is often sacrilegious. But I think that Faustus’s curiosity or desire to know is not essentially a sacrilege; it is not always a sacrilege, despite the efforts of the narrator of the Faustbuch to make us think so. In Faustus, there is a propensity for knowledge and a propensity for impiety; and deep inside them (allowing myself a little grandiloquence and inverting the previous order) beat a human sin and a satanic sin. These two propensities sometimes merge; but only at times. In general, they are distinguishable; they occur at different points in time and one may even be the basis for the other: curiosity can lead to impiety and impiety to curiosity. My proposal is that the different ways of articulating curiosity and impiety allow us to explain the unity and plurality of the Faustuses. Hence, to deal accurately with the choice between the identification of and distinction between curiosity and impiety, we shall begin by looking at Faustus’s own words. Of course, it is not commonplace for a hero to put his heart in writing, and still less so that he should do it with his own blood and before the Devil himself. Since two Faustuses did this, we can assign a special importance to their testimonies, and from this point of view, look at the old stories of the narrators and poets. It is difficult to understand foreign blood, as Zarathustra humbly said. Let’s look at it with the same spirit. The two Faustuses who signed written pacts have left us explicit statements on their motivations. As we have seen, Johann asks the spirit for complete obedience, and that he should not conceal from him any information that he may require in his studies and always answers his questions truthfully. What Johann wants—​at least what he says he wants—​is truthful information for his research. His words, whether we believe them or not, reflect curiosity without impiety. John, on the other hand, explains his initiative to deliver his soul to the Devil in this way, ‘Go bear these tidings to great Lucifer: | Seeing Faustus hath incurr’d eternal death | By desperate thoughts against Jove’s deity’ (i, 3, 86–​88). The reasons John gives are his sins against the divinity, and he does not know what he wants. His words reflect impiety without curiosity. It is true that the narrator of the Faustbuch insists that in his yearning for knowledge, Faustus moves away from God (Chapter 14). But it is also true that the same narrator allows us to see the completely intellectual nature of this curiosity. I have already noted that on the path to the pact and in the pact itself, Faustus’s curiosity does not appear a sacrilege, except, as on many other occasions, when the narrator adds explicit theological comments. We have already seen how Mephistopheles makes Faustus repeat his desires for the pact and

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that among them are, unexpectedly, that of becoming a demon. This desire does not fit into the context and that is why I have mentioned two narrative threads. But as well as this moment, in the chronicle of the life and activity of Faustus as an astronomer, the narrator lowers his guard and presents many different episodes of real scientific curiosity, directed towards objects such as how the seasons and day and night function. Moreover, when Johann Faustus enquires after religious matters—​those that really interest him—​he does so with a kind of analytical or scientific curiosity, as we have seen in the previous section. The questions about the nature, foundations and substance of hell, for example, are scientific questions applied to divine matters. The narrator appears to hold that it is a sacrilegious curiosity, not because the questions involve an explicit sacrilegious intention, but for the mere fact of turning the scientific attitude towards these matters. At heart, that is his message. It is possible that any apparently scientific approach to heaven and hell involves some kind of impiety. But what I want to point out is the difference between this concomitant impiety, if I can put it like that, and a direct and defiant impiety or insubordination. Mephistopheles states that Faustus has renounced God and abused intelligence (Chapter 17). However, he does not appear to attribute to Faustus the wish to renounce God, but rather to consider that the abuse of intelligence necessarily involves the denial of God. This is perhaps a good time to recall the two moments in which Faustus doubts, to which I have already alluded. There are other episodes of repentance and desperation in the story of Johann Faustus, but they are a little histrionic, apart from—​perhaps—​the famous final lament, to which I will refer below; and they appear to be at the service of the book’s edifying morals. The moments I am referring to express Faustus’s doubts in the midst of serenity. If Satan himself had his moment of doubt, as we were taught by Milton, it would be strange if Doctor Faustus never had his; given that he was no more than a man, after all. Johann Faustus had one moment of intellectual doubt or weakness and two of spiritual doubt or weakness. In the former, during his trip to heaven he thought for a moment that he had already seen too much. As to the latter, on one occasion he asked Mephistopheles whether those condemned to hell had any hope of grace; and on another, what he could do to save himself before God or man. Certainly, these doubts humanise the original Faustian soul. In contrast, John Faustus, Marlowe’s Faust, clearly expresses a different kind of impiety: insubordination or direct negation of God, in desperate thoughts against Jove’s deity. This spiritual pride is even cruder due to the fact that it is not accompanied by or gives rise to a dynamic and focused (though maybe changing) curiosity, but to a cinematic and unfocused desire. Moving to a

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different Faustus, Heinrich already knows everything and yearns for vitality. His excesses lead him to magic and dealings with the Devil, which is difficult to do without impiety. His anxiety and impiety make him commit terrible atrocities. But his impiety appears to accompany his anxiety, not motivate it, and he does not directly act for evil or against God. Finally, while doubt humanises Johann, if only for a few moments, sustained coldness dehumanises Adrian. His friend and biographer tries to love him and save him, as maybe the reader does, but the all-​powerful author of the novel does not allow either of them to do so. His youthful decision to devote himself to theological studies is presented as an eminently proud and diabolical commitment. My task is not to analyse the Faustian personality or soul as a whole, but only a part of it, albeit an important part: Faustian pride. Faustian drive is seeped with desire and dissatisfaction, but also pride. To try to encapsulate it in some way, the only thing I can think of is to again make use of the most useful characterisation of pride we have found so far: the disordered appetite for one’s own excellence. When this appetite turns against God, we are dealing with spiritual pride, insubordination or the denial of God. When this appetite remains on the human plane, it is moral pride, whose most eloquent form is perhaps intellectual pride. Lucifer committed the first sin and Eve the second. Faustian pride or excess appears to be an articulation of the two and that is what its unity consists of. But there are various forms of this articulation and that is where its plurality appears. The pride of Johann and Heinrich appears fundamentally intellectual and that of John and Adrian fundamentally spiritual. In the language of Aquinas which I promised at the start, and to ensure precision, perhaps I might say that the pride of the first two is intellectual formaliter and involves a spiritual pride secundum quid, while the pride of the latter is spiritual formaliter and of course makes them fall into intellectual pride secundum quid. 5

The Condemnation and Salvation of Faustus

The poets enjoy a number of privileges, including that of being able to condemn or save Faustus as they see fit. Each reader, in turn, is free to accept or reject the poet’s verdict and condemn or save Faustus in his or her own mind and own way. I do this myself as a reader, as does everyone. But as a researcher and historian of pride and hubris, I am very far from daring to condemn or save Doctor Faustus, although I do have two things to say. First, I do not believe that each poet does with Faustus whatever he wishes. Real poets, like real philosophers, do not do whatever they feel like; they do not try to create truth and lies

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in an extra-​moral sense; rather, they adapt to the nature of things. This is what the great John Milton did, showing, despite his irredeemable misogyny, that woman aspired to a higher knowledge, the aspiration that humanised us, while man was satisfied with a middling knowledge, which maintained us as brutes. And this is what the anonymous author or authors of the original Faustus did. As a result, we can understand that Johann’s pride was intellectual formaliter and spiritual only secundum quid, despite the insistent moralising on the sacrilegious nature of excessive curiosity. On this point, we should remember the philological conquests and recall the two original versions of the History of Faustus mentioned at the start: the manuscript of Wolfenbüttel and that published by Spies. As we have seen, both appear to come from a common source; the second includes many theological annotations that are not in the first. It is possible that the second narrative thread of which I have talked, the theological, corresponds largely but not entirely to the additions to the published text which are not in the manuscript. In this case, it is worth noting that the essentially intellectual nature of the pride of the first Faustus has survived the theological corrections in the Spies publication. A comparison of the two original documents, the manuscript and the published text, also reveals other interesting details on the personality of the original Faustus. To give an example, the second moment of spiritual doubt to which I referred above is not in the manuscript, but only in the published text. Thus, according to the first text, Faustus’s intellectual and spiritual doubts are balanced, while in the second, the spiritual prevailed. This fact corresponds to an important controversy on the nature of divine grace, which was current at the time within Protestantism, as we will see shortly. Second, I aim to apply this general thesis (that true poets adapt to the nature of things) to the particular case of the condemnation and salvation of Faustus. My thesis is that the condemnation and salvation of Faustus are dictated by the nature of his pride. When Faustus’s pride is intellectual formaliter and spiritual secundum quid, the poet saves Faustus; I mean that the poet recognises that Faustus is saved. And when Faustus’s pride is spiritual formaliter and intellectual secundum quid, the poet condemns Faustus; I mean that he recognises that he is plunging headlong without remission to hell. Thus Johann and Heinrich are saved, while John and Adrian are condemned. As can be seen, this thesis works perfectly in three of our cases, but appears to fail in one, precisely the original Faustus, in which the Devil ends up ruthlessly quartering the body of Faustus on earth and taking his soul to hell. We must explain this anomaly, but to do so, our story—​our telling of the myths—​must approach for a moment the telling of the facts. Before that, I will very briefly recall a curious anecdote. One day Zarathustra, the atheist, disappeared and the rumour

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began to circulate that the Devil had taken him to hell, like Faustus. One of the followers had the idea that it was in fact Zarathustra who had taken the Devil to hell. But the disciples did not recover their peace of mind until the prophet was resurrected on the fifth day. Synergism was a Protestant heresy of the 16th Century, which claimed that man could deserve grace and be saved by his own efforts. Orthodox Protestants (if you forgive the oxymoron) argued that grace is entirely in the hands of God and that the sinner can only hope to be saved if he fully trusts in grace (Haile 1995: viii–​x). Many ideas may be old, but they are renewed and appear in new clothes, so they become old and new at the same time. We already know from the history of the Hebrew people that trust in one’s own strength conflicts with spiritual submission. Well, the first written version of the story of Doctor Faustus—​the original Faustbuch—​was developed and saw the light in the context of this doctrinal controversy and in the wake of Luther’s obsession with the Devil. The initial story of Faustus does not pivot on grace and salvation; but they gradually came to have an increasing importance in the published text. Faustus’s curiosity and activities perfectly represent interference in divine and human matters without respecting frameworks, restrictions and inherited obedience. The author or authors of the Faustbuch attribute a sacrilegious curiosity to Faustus. If Johann’s curiosity is not sacrilegious formaliter, as I have tried to show, but only secundum quid, so much the better for the book’s moral: all curiosity, all intellectual enterprise, may easily result in impiety; at root it is diabolical and leads to condemnation. Based on this, as well as sacrilegious curiosity, orthodoxy also attributes heresy to Faustus, together with a double sin in relation to divine grace, which the published version highlights again and again: both mistrust of grace and doubt regarding its scope. Now, if Johann’s curiosity is primarily or essentially (formaliter) intellectual and not spiritual, if we can distinguish the story of Faustus and the theological commentaries as two narrative threads that are intertwined, then we will also recognise that together with the thread which condemns him is the thread which saves him; that, together with the letter of the condemnation, is the spirit of salvation. This reading allows us to demonstrate not only the duality of the original character and the duality of the sources; it also responds to the understanding awakened by Doctor Faustus and the fact that his condemnation has been repeatedly perceived as unfair. If my proposal is correct, this appreciation is in line with the relation between the nature of his pride and his final destiny. The backdrop to the doctrinal dispute on divine grace between Protestant orthodoxy and the synergist deviation allows us to also accept that Faustian

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pride or excess is, in turn, subject on this point to demands that we can classify as excessive. In accordance with the orthodoxy, to which we can no doubt assign the author of the Faustbuch, human beings cannot access divine grace by their own strength or their own merits. Believing you deserve grace is an act of pride. But, also in accordance with the author of the Faustbuch, believing like Cain that one’s own sins are too serious to be pardoned involves imagining limits to divine grace. Believing that one may never receive or deserve grace is also an act of pride. Thus, any spiritual movement by Doctor Faustus in relation to grace can be used against him and be classified as pride. This heart-​ breaking experience will be relived in an entirely analogous fashion by the composer Adrian Leverkühn. It is not easy to know whether it is pride or grace which threatens the sacred order governed by the principle of contradiction. Whatever the case may be, divine grace is aloof. Any rational approach to it is an act of curiosity and impiety at the same time; sacrilegious curiosity, which, in turn, does not appear to admit the distinctions with which I have tried to clarify—​only a little, unfortunately—​the essence of Faustian pride. Now, with Faustus’s salvation or condemnation, the story of pride and hubris is no longer decided in heaven and hell. It comes to be played out on Earth. In the contemporary world, pride leaves behind this psychomachia and becomes a simpler pride, a pride without God or the Devil. In a sense, it is a strange kind of pride, without languor naturae or colossal yearnings. In another sense, it is perhaps a most intimate form of pride, not as obsessed with greatness and more concerned with small things, which are also beautiful. The earthly story of Doctor Faustus, before his supernatural fate, leads us naturally into these new historical and philosophical stages. In the earthly wanderings of Faustus, we find a mundane reflection of his salvation and eternal condemnation, which we can perhaps classify as mundane salvation and condemnation. It takes place on two fronts: love and the ‘humanitarian watery pap’, to borrow the expression used by Doctor Breisacher, with whom the composer Leverkühn would converse regularly, and who admired the archaic will of the Jewish people to overcome God and hated the attention paid to widows, orphans and foreigners. My thesis is, once more, that salvation and the condemnation in earthly love and fraternity are a direct consequence of the dominant form of Faustian pride. Intellectual pride simpliciter, although it may be accompanied by spiritual pride secundum quid, produces salvation in both erotic and fraternal or humanitarian love; while spiritual pride simpli­ citer, whether or not it is accompanied by intellectual pride, produces condemnation in all the forms of love. Johann and Heinrich were able to experience love of another and love of others—​eros and fraternity—​even if only for a moment. However surprising

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it may seem, Johann experienced a real love for Helen of Troy and experienced with her the blessing and delights of paternity, ‘Whereupon he fell in love with her and made her his common concubine and bedfellow, for she was so beautiful and delightful a piece that he could not be one moment from her, in time she was with child, and in the end brought him a man child, whom Faustus named Justus Faustus’ (Chapter 59/​55). Once more, the most emotional function of art is made manifest: to illuminate what we are. Who has never dreamed of having a son with Helen of Troy? And, to make sure we do not forget him, the author or corrector of the published Faustbuch asks in a marginal note whether the child was baptised. The relationship between Heinrich and Helen was very stiff, of course, but Heinrich did know, when he was young, a more authentic love for Marguerite and relived it as an old man in his memory. Moreover, the Devil’s crony himself was not completely free from the emotion of humility and fraternity. On one occasion, when he was walking to the city of Brunswick to attend to a marshal, Johann came across a farm worker with four horses and an empty carriage and asked him if he could use it. As it later became clear, he did not ask him seriously, ‘but to prove the buzzard, if there were any courtesy to be found in him if need were’. The farm worker refused and was very surly. However, later on, when he received his just desserts, he admitted his mistake and behaved in a very servile fashion, which touched Faustus. ‘Which humility made Faustus his heart to relent, answering him on this manner: “Well, do so no more, for there is nothing so shameful as churlishness and want of charity, which are rooted in pride”’ (Chapter 50; changed in efb, Ch. 46). In few places is the genius of Goethe, the great reconciler, so dazzling: he even flirted with the idea of saving Satan himself, as in the domestication of the Faustian excess through the loyal and careful work of a civil engineer for the good of the people. It is true that greatness never allows one to abandon ambiguity, and that together with the regulation of freedom, perhaps here too, as the experts say, one can see the excesses of despotism and the machinery of the State (Burdach 1923: 53). At any event, what is true is that Faustus observed his dykes with the same pride and satisfaction with which Gilgamesh observed the walls of his city, while showing them to Urshanabi, the boatman. The old king of Uruk, whose vision was most profound, also had ‘a restless spirit’ (iii, 47: xi, 321–​28). Perhaps the greatest expression of Goethe’s understanding and love towards his character was the prize he awarded him ‘for desiring the impossible’: an unforgettable ride on the centaur Chiron, the teacher of heroes. Gilgamesh undoubtedly also deserved this prize. Pride can be pardoned, says Goethe. There is no pardon for cynicism, say I, but that is another matter.

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As for John and Adrian, they were not allowed to enjoy either love of another or love of others. The composer Leverkühn felt a real love for his nephew Nepomuk Schneidewein, but the demon and novelist snatched him away cruelly, with the aim of causing him the greatest pain possible. It is well known that Thomas Mann wrote his novel in the United States during the Second World War, and he pours his just rage against his homeland onto his Doctor Faustus. As his posthumous oratorio The Lamentation of Doctor Faustus proclaims, Adrian Leverkühn died ‘as a good and bad Christian’, at his mother’s side, after a terrible agony. Perhaps the novelist lacked a little pity for his character here, as is the case at many other moments.

pa rt 2 The Philosophy of Pride

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­c hapter 8

The Virtue of Pride 1

From Myth to Lógos

The first three major stages in the history of pride—​from eternity to the creation of the world, from the creation to the fall of Adam and Eve, and from our first parents to Jesus—​are basically mythological. In our era, the history of pride becomes a more logical and analytical history. Although Aristotle said that the lover of myths is already to some extent philosophical, our attitude and research has to reflect the inflection from the indomitable mythophile to the philosopher. It is true that I have already had to make use of the lógos of Thomas Aquinas to temper the excesses of the poets. But from this point on, philosophical analysis will take on a crucial role. It is also true that the last great historical episode we have considered, the poetic myth of Doctor Faustus, completely belongs to our era. It is important not to forget the titanic and protean figure of Faustus, so that the philosophical analysis does not cool and soften the passionate realities we are dealing with. In any event, everyone is as he is and I can’t give up either myth or lógos. The two questions underlying the philosophical treatment we are going to begin in this chapter are the nature of pride and its relation to other similar phenomena. We will have to go more slowly in constructing the psychological ontology of pride as an act and habit, emotion and character, and its relationship with opposite or complementary phenomena like hubris, magnanimity and humility. Naturally, these questions have already appeared here, but in a less systematic way. In this chapter, we will take into account the conclusions we have already reached, but we will deal with them with the help of some particularly relevant modern philosophers such as Descartes, Spinoza and Hume. Later on, we will return to this theoretical approach, adding more contemporary elements, such as the collective dimension of actions and feelings and the purely phenomenological perspective. Now, however, we will look at how modern philosophy constitutes a new phase in the understanding of pride, which is distinguished from earlier phases, in particular mediaeval psychology. The two most important analytical proposals that we have found so far are the duality reflected in ordinary language, the feeling of one’s own excellence and the attitude of superiority and contempt, and the characterisation proposed by Thomas Aquinas of pride as a disordered appetite for one’s own excellence. The contrast and complementarity between these proposals is the best point

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_010

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of entry into modern analyses. Ordinary language distinguishes between pride as an emotion and pride as an attitude or character. The term pride is used naturally in both cases, while the term hubris corresponds to the second. In the more strictly conceptual steps of the analysis, I will try to reserve pride for the first and ordinary hubris or arrogance for the second. In the less conceptual steps, I will leave a little more freedom to the ambiguities wisely offered by ordinary language. Thomas Aquinas uses the latter term, but what he actually says in his writings fits more closely with the former. The two differences between the ordinary definition of pride and the Thomist definition of hubris are the proximate kind (emotion and appetite) and the mode of disorder, added by Doctor Angelicus. Emotion and appetite belong to the same psychological order, phenomena or mental acts, while attitude and character belong to another order, the deposit of positive and negative psychological habits, virtues and vices. Thus, the hubris identified by Aquinas is not hubris but pride. Both in letter and spirit, mediaeval hubris, the disordered appetite for one’s own excellence, is not a form of ordinary hubris or arrogance, but a form of ordinary pride or emotion and desire for one’s own excellence. Naturally, the variations in kind and mode do not lack importance. In this chapter, we will look at them in the transition from mediaeval psychology to modern philosophy. In Chapter 12, the phenomenological analysis of historical and conceptual variations will play a pre-​eminent role. Aquinas generously refers in his definition to Saint Augustine, who offers the expression perversae celsitudinis appetitus, but not a comparable theoretical treatment. Appetite is a conative act which comes from dispositions or habits to act in such a way. Modern philosophers will use this psychological weft as a support and offer new perspectives, in particular related to the passions and emotions. When this appetite is truly spiritual and addressed insolently towards God, Aquinas presents a new and precise characterisation: not to submit to the superior when necessary. It is a case of spiritual disobedience, for which both the terms pride and hubris fall a little short. Although it involves an attitude and a way of being, it goes much further than ordinary hubris or arrogance. When it has to be named and not confused with arrogance, it is expressly called spiritual hubris. Aquinas also uses the terms superbia generalis and superbia specialis. This distinction can be expressed in identical terms and is equivalent to the distinction between spiritual hubris (disobedience) and moral hubris (disordered appetite). Our term pride is also used for both types of hubris and we can talk about spiritual pride and moral pride. In addition, the positive consideration of the appetite for excellence provides a link to the Aristotelian and Thomist concept of magnanimity, the

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greatness of the soul. Descartes returns to this idea with his concept of gene­ rosité, a term which, for reasons we will see below, he says he prefers to that of magnanimité. It is Hume who expressly notes that pride admits a positive and negative sense, with the latter being more frequent. And although he makes use of the expression greatness of mind to explain the positive aspect, he openly attributes to noble pride a form of dignity and character, giving it a central place in the building of virtues and the establishment of identity. 2

Opinions, Desires, Emotions

Psychological acts are specified by their objects, habits by their acts and faculties by their habits. Our starting point as object is one’s own excellence. We can aim towards it, direct ourselves psychologically to it, in several ways, which basically appear to be three. We can know, desire or feel our own excellence. It is important to realise from the start how difficult it is to plough this furrow. The greats here offer evidence of the three things and we can recognise ourselves in all of them. We have to make progress with their assistance, check their proposals against our experience and accept with gratitude any aid from whoever can provide us with it, whether poet, musician or engineer. Although philosophers immediately make their qualifications and accept the complexity of the phenomena, they offer specific formulas to try and capture pride, in which they initially appeal to various psychological phenomena. In Descartes’ formula, pride (orgueil) is knowledge: la bonne opinion qu’on a de soy même (the good opinion which we have of ourselves) (Les passions de l’âme, art. 160). As we have seen, for Thomas Aquinas, pride (superbia) is desire or appetite; according to Spinoza and Hume, both good pride and bad are emotion. For Spinoza, good pride (acquiescentia in se ipso, contentment in oneself) is laetitia orta ex eo, quod homo se ipsum suamque agendi potentia contemplatur (Ethica iii, def. 25) and bad pride (superbia) de se prae amore sui plus iusto sentire (Ethica iii, def. 28). For Hume, both are sentiments of conscious worth (Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, app. iv, Selby-​Bigge: 263) and differ in being well-​ or ill-​founded. I quote the words used by the philosophers themselves so that if we get lost, we can’t blame their translators. Thus, starting with our object (one’s excellence), the first logical crossroads offers three different ways of approaching it and the great philosophers we have made use of take different paths. As there are three options, I have chosen four so I can decide the issue by majority. However, if this is what has happened in the first step from object to acts, it is to be feared that the second step, from acts to habits, and the third, from habits to faculties, will be uncontrollable.

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I hope that readers may look on my own efforts to assimilate the best of each benevolently—​not according to the principle of charity but the principle of justice—​and that I am allowed a certain licence. With the ontology and phenomenology of pride we are on tricky ground. But in this it is no different from other landscapes of the human mind, whether gentle hills or sweet valleys, rocky peaks, the depths of the ocean or infernal chasms from which the scorching lava of earthquakes emerges with fear and trembling. To put it in Hume’s terminology, without leaving our present orbit, philosophy is precisely the ploughing of the terra cognita e incognita of the human mind or nature. Well, the characterisation of pride by appealing primarily to a certain type of psychological act (knowledge, desire, emotion) does not prevent us from appealing to others as well and recognising that it may go beyond them and reach as far as habits and character. Descartes himself characterises pride as an opinion about oneself, but also refers to passion and virtue. As I understand it, and following Spinoza and Hume on this point, it is best to conceive of pride as an originally affective phenomenon, and from that point contemplate its irradiation across the whole soul. The traditional term, a legacy from ancient and mediaeval philosophy, is passions of the soul. It is also the key term for modern philosophers, who use it as a starting point for the introduction of other terms. Descartes defines them as emotions and feelings, while Spinoza talks of affects and Hume also of emotions. What interests us here is not to distinguish feelings, emotions, affects and passions, but something much more basic: to think and distinguish affectivity from other different psychological phenomena such as desires, opinions and habits. Pride is the feeling of satisfaction that accompanies the affirmation of oneself and the ‘sentiment of conscious worth’, as Hume says. What is one’s own is in principle individual, but it extends naturally to persons and groups with which one feels some identification. However, the elements which go beyond the individual are not as common in modern analyses as in contemporary ones, and thus we will deal with them in the final chapters of this essay. The original psychological act appears to be a feeling of pride, not a belief or a desire for pride. It is an emotion of satisfaction and contentment (acquiestentia, laetitia, says Spinoza), of self-​love (amour propre, says Descartes), and of self-​esteem, say Hume and Milton. The emotion of pride is necessarily preceded or accompanied by a cognitive component: a conscience and estimation of conscious worth, a belief or judgement of value or estimation. The emotion itself of pride can’t be captured without this cognitive component (opinion, according to Descartes); it would be incomplete. That is why we can say that it forms part of its essence or eidos. Talking about the essence of pride is not something strange, as some claim,

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but the most natural thing in the world. That a value judgement on one’s own forms part of the essence of pride simply means that we can’t understand the term, or address this complex logical unity with the mind, without including this component. The feeling of pride without a value judgement or estimation of one’s worth is not a feeling of pride because it lacks something for it to be so. This doesn’t mean that we can’t therefore stretch the eidos to point to phenomena that are particularly noteworthy and try to reflect our psychological richness. The most absurd and unjust pride, insists Descartes, is the pride which lacks a reason or cause motivating it (Passions, a. 157). Perhaps we could call it pride without a cause. As well as pointing to the essential link between the feeling of pride and value judgments, modern analyses of pride also point towards other directions of the logical space, in particular to appetites or habits. Moreover, to look into them as required, it is worth first of all looking more carefully at the basic distinctions with which the mental life is organised in the passage from the old philosophy to the new. These basic distinctions are necessary to determine the place in this map of affectivity in general and the particular affect we are investigating, which is pride. The term which designates this region of the spirit is that of passions of the soul, both in the traditional magma and at its bare summit of Thomist systematisation, as well as on the ground zero of the new philosophy, constructed from nothing by René Descartes, given that the inherited doctrines proved useless. As the father of modern philosophy himself says, in few fields is the defective nature of received materials more patent than in affectivity. 3

The Passions of the Soul

The new philosophy rejects the appetites and powers of the soul of mediaeval anthropology. The distinction between rational and sensitive appetite and the division of sensitive appetite into concupiscible and irascible come in the last resort from Platonic philosophy. The distinction of appetites tries to reflect the experience of a plurality of trends on which human beings feel that they have more or less control. This distinction of appetites was immortalised in the allegory of the soul as a winged chariot, in which a charioteer (the rational appetite) steers two horses: one white, which is ardent but attentive to the rational steering (irascible sensitive appetite), and the other black, much more wilful, but not completely ungovernable rationally (concupiscent sensitive appetite). The moral virtue which governs the irascible appetite is strength; that which

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governs concupiscent appetite is temperance, and that which governs rational appetite is justice. The distinction between the vegetative, sensitive and rational powers or functions of the human soul ultimately comes from Aristotelian anthropology. Vegetative power is responsible for the nutrition and growth of living beings; sensitive power for local movement and sensitivity, and rational power for intelligence and will. The distinction between the powers aims to cover three orders of functions of increasing complexity, which can be observed in living beings. There was no lack of theories in the Middle Ages which were unrelated to Thomist anthropology, and which attributed the possibility of this functional distinction to the presence of different types of spirits, conceived at times—​but not always—​as material fluids, called natural, vital or animal spirits. Descartes rejects the appetites and powers of the soul. For him, thought is the activity which reveals the reality of the substance which thinks and allows us to clearly delimit the functions corresponding to the soul and the body of man. Disagreeing with scholastic philosophy, Descartes denies the vegetative and sensitive powers of the soul, holding that body heat, nutrition and movement are activities of our body’s machine. Whenever he determines the functions of the soul with respect to the body, Descartes follows a fairly similar line: the res cogitans doubts, affirms, denies, understands, does not know, wants, does not want and also imagines and feels. Both vitalist mediaeval philosophy and mechanistic Cartesian physiology are archaic and not our problem. However, the formal and psychological distinctions between the different types of mental phenomena offer a certain continuity with distinctions that are experienced and lived by people in very distant epochs, in which anatomical and physiological knowledge is very different. Continuity and discontinuity in the lived experience and psychology are included in a thousand different ways in popular psychology and expressed in another thousand in different languages. To deal with discontinuity, some careful historical and literary context is required; but without certain continuities, an infinite number of historical and literary documents from other ages are unintelligible to us. Here we are going to see a simple outline of some elements that match or distinguish mediaeval psychology, exemplified by Thomas Aquinas, modern psychology, exemplified by Descartes, and the place and nature of the passions of the soul. The aim is, of course, to recover their ideas on the passion of pride and their link to virtue and vice, and to examine the evolution of the understanding of pride running from them to other modern philosophers.

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Thomist and Cartesian psychology share the first great division of thought, mental activity, mental phenomena or the most general acts of the human mind. The first great criterion shared by Thomas Aquinas and Descartes, whom we take as representatives of mediaeval and modern philosophy, is passivity and activity: the reception of objects and the tendency towards them, whatever type they are. The human mind has two great mental possibilities: reception and intention. Aquinas calls them the intellective and appetitive powers. Descartes calls them perceptions or passions, in a general sense, and volitions or actions of the soul. This apparent initial correspondence already involves important differences, which will take on particular importance when it comes to thinking about the nature of passions, in the specific sense that interests us, as feelings or emotions of the soul. Next, Aquinas uses the same criterion to divide the vis intellectiva and the vis appetitiva: rationality and sensitivity. The rational intellective power is directed at abstract objects of reason and the sensitive intellective capacity to concrete objects of the senses. The rational appetite or will is geared to generating new states of affairs, while the sensitive appetite, for which he preserves the Platonic division between concupiscible and irascible, covers all types of tendencies and affections, in which the sensitive and corporeal nature of human beings is involved. Concupiscible sensitive appetite includes all the impulses that lead us away from the appeals of reason, while irascible sensitive appetite covers all the impulses that withdraw us from these rational considerations. In the Thomist mental cartography, emotions or passions of the soul are conceived (following John of Damascus) as movements of the sentient appetitive power in the imagination of good or evil (i–​i i, q. 22, a. 3). Aquinas identifies a number of primitive passions inherent to the concupiscible sensitive appetite depending on the awareness of good and evil (love and hate), the tendency to it (desire and aversion) and its presence or absence (joy and sadness). And he determines the passions inherent to irascible sensitive appetite by the arduous nature of good and evil; in other words, due to the difficulties of achieving or avoiding it: hope and despair, audacity and fear; and finally, anger or rage. Aquinas argues extensively that the latter has no opposite. All the other passions are conceived based on these eleven. For his part, Descartes introduces a similar criterion to Thomas Aquinas for the first division of perceptions and volitions. The criterion of Aquinas is the distinction between rationality and sensitivity and the criterion of Descartes is the relationship with the body; but, in this case, it takes two different forms. Perceptions are divided into those caused by the soul or by the body; and volitions according to whether they end in the soul or the body. Perceptions caused by the soul are the perception or awareness that we have of our own

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volitions; while the perceptions caused generically by the body have in turn some proximate causes and others that are more distant. The proximate causes are the movement of animal spirits, i.e. the lightest particles which compose the blood, and their transmission to the soul by the impact on a small organ responsible for communication between the physical and mental: the pineal gland, located in the brain. In general, the distant causes of perceptions and the movement of animal spirits are external objects, but they may also be almost fortuitous movements of animal spirits or even the temperament of the body. Moreover, the volitions or actions of the soul that end in the soul itself are those through which we aim to modify other mental phenomena, whether other volitions or perceptions, such as imaginations or emotions, which is difficult to do directly. The volitions that end in the body are those which initiate any type of movement or voluntary action, like talking or walking. In the Cartesian mental cartography, the passions of the soul proper belong to the territory of perceptions or passions of the soul in the widest sense caused by the body. Descartes distinguishes in this terrain, first, the perceptions caused by movements of the animal spirits not really transmitted by the nerves but arising from previous movements: the sphere of imagination. And when the spirits circulate to the pineal gland through the actual nerves, he relates the perceptions to external objects (sentient perception), to the body itself (affections such as hunger and thirst) or the soul itself (the passions in the strict sense). Hence, the passions of the soul are ‘perceptions, feelings or emotions of the soul, which we particularly relate to this, and which are caused, maintained and fortified by some movement of the spirits’ (Passions, a. 27). As Descartes does not admit the distinction between the concupiscible and irascible appetites, this distinction does not intervene in the determination of the primitive passions. But his list has many points in common with the primitive passions recognised by Aquinas in the concupiscible appetite. For Descartes, the first of all the passions is admiration and that is where its originality resides. We have already found the others in Aquinas, except that for Descartes desire does not have an opposite, as he excludes aversion, so that the other five are love, hate, desire, joy and sadness. Thus, in Thomist psychology, the passions of the soul are modifications of the sensitive appetite, while in the Cartesian psychology, they are perceptions caused by the body but felt in the soul. This difference allows us to raise questions that are also relevant when physiology is not as archaic. I am only going to refer to one of them, with respect to the relationship between physiology and psychology. From a more recent perspective, this question tends to be transferred to the relationship between neurology and psychology. I will refer

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to it below when I briefly review the contributions on pride of contemporary positive science. In his investigation of human nature in general and the nature of the passions of the soul in particular, Descartes rejects the elements of scholastic philosophy which appear of no use to him, such as appetites and powers. To give a more solid foundation to his project and avoid losing his footing with metaphysical speculations, he proposes studying the passions with the tools of physics, explaining as much of the psychology as possible through physiology. This purpose can be seen in two core areas. First, in relating all vegetative and sensitive functions which we share as humans with animals to corporal mechanisms, without the intervention of any psychological element. Second, in the attempt to understand passions, some of which we also recognise in animals, through physiological explanations as far as possible. I will limit myself to the second area and the primitive passions, as the others are based on them. Initially, Descartes covers all the passions from the standpoint of the movement of animal spirits, considered in different ways. However, he immediately has to recognise that it is impossible to properly conceive of the passions and distinguish between them based on purely physiological phenomena, as they only take on a meaning on the basis of significant elements. Access to signification and meaning takes on many forms (beliefs, judgements, desires, imaginations, expectations, emotions, etc.). All of them are psychological. Meaning is not accessible for physical phenomena. Given this, Descartes states, in general, that the passion in question also occurs in another guise, as a phenomenon that is initially mental. Together with the passion of joy, there is also an intellectual or spiritual joy, actually arising from judgements and valuations. And Descartes also recognises emotions that he classifies as ‘purely spiritual’, which appear to remain in the soul itself. In turn, emotions born from judgements and valuations and emotions which are purely spiritual tend to feed the passion which initially obeys purely physiological causes; but in reality, the participation of judgements and valuations, together with bodily reactions, is what allows us, again and again, to explain and define the different passions. In each case, the possibility of conceiving them exclusively through physiological elements becomes less clear and disappears. According to Descartes, the struggles which traditional philosophy imagined between the upper and lower parts of the human soul must be seen in the new philosophy as struggles between the soul and the body. Now, the repeated impossibility that Descartes finds but never openly recognises, of treating passions ‘as a physicist’, in other words based on physiology, appears to show that, even rejecting the old appetites and assuming fully the presence and participation of the body, the presumed combat between the body and soul ends

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up revealing itself in reality as a combat between the soul and the soul. But to assess the concept of the nature of the passions of the soul offered by Thomist and Cartesian psychology, we have to examine its interdependence with other mental elements such as beliefs, valuations and positive and negative habits, virtues and vices. We will look at this interdependence with respect to the object of our research, i.e. pride. The formal distinctions between different types of psychological acts will provide us with a better foundation to address the material distinctions between pride and other contrasting or complementary phenomena, such as hubris, magnanimity and humility, which constitute the second question raised at the start of this chapter. 4

Pride, Magnanimity and Humility

Let’s recall that psychological acts are specified by their objects, habits are specified by their acts, and that our starting point is ‘oneself’. As we have seen a few sections earlier, when characterising pride, modern philosophers appeal initially to different acts of knowing, tendency or feeling (opinion, appetite, emotion). But I also noted at the time that, from these starting points, all of them introduce other psychological elements to explain the complexity of the phenomenon. Now that we have discussed the Thomist and Cartesian theories of the passions of the soul, it appears to be the right time to examine this psychological structure. To do so, we will first examine the connection between judgements and passions, and then the relationship between acts and habits. Descartes considers that pride is a passion, but also a disposition or habit. Positive habits are virtues and negative habits, vices. Descartes assumes the traditional concept of virtues and vices as psychological habits, but not that of passions as modifications of the appetite. To avoid scholastic speculation, he tries to conceive of them based on their physiological correlatives. But as we have seen, he is obliged again and again to characterise them by calling on the different ways in which we point our minds to their objects, or on the meaning with which these objects and their circumstances are presented to us, that is, calling on different psychological acts. In the description of the different passions, the first elements identified by Descartes tend to be beliefs and valuations. As it is not our task to re-​establish the whole Cartesian theory of the passions, to which I have already dedicated sufficient time, but to investigate the nature of pride, I will limit myself now to this phenomenon and those related to it. This analysis can be generalised to his theory of affectivity, but my aim is not to explain it here. In the Cartesian analysis, the judgement and valuation on which the passion of pride depends

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is one’s ‘good opinion’ of oneself. But although the formulas of the other great philosophers we are following appear to initially give pride of place to other psychological acts (appetite, emotion), it is easy to see that, deep down, all these presuppose a judgement and valuation which are fully analogous to those identified by Descartes: propria excellentia (Aquinas), se ipsum suamque agendi potentia (Spinoza), ‘conscious worth’ (Hume). Pride is not this judgement, but the emotion or passion born from it: appetite (Aquinas; we have already seen that passion is a modification of appetite), passion (Descartes), laetitia (Spinoza), ‘sentiment’ (Hume). Although with the necessary qualifications, they are certainly talking about the same thing. Now we do not need any philosopher to come and tell us that the value judgement of oneself may be reasonable or not, may be justified or not. It is also not necessary for any philosopher to tell us that this second element is also essential to describe the nature of pride. But we don’t have to be so proud as to think that everything comes to us from nothing and that all previous thinkers were completely wrong. I am happy to note that all the masters we are following point to this phenomenon with complete clarity. The value judgement of oneself may be reasonable or not. The shift from actions to habits and the relationship between pride and friendly phenomena depend entirely on this dilemma. As was to be expected, neither the philosophy created ex nihilo, nor that constructed more geometrico, nor that which is only based on impressions of the senses may evade the exercise of the venerable prudential judgement, as there is no other way of distinguishing between what is reasonable and what is not. When the acts and emotions that accompany them are repeated, this develops the dispositions or habits to act in this way. Dispositions or psychological habits model the éthos or moral character. Although character is difficult and laborious to change (difficulter mobile), as habits become reinforced, character becomes second nature, from which the acts appear to emerge in an increasingly natural way. Habits considered positive are called virtues and those considered negative are called vices. The most detailed theoretical development of character and the virtues comes from Aristotle and Aquinas. Descartes accepts it as correct, and it does not appear incompatible with the rest of the philosophies we are examining. Pride is a passion, but if it is based on a disposition for action, it becomes a habit, which initially appears to be a vice. As Descartes acutely observes, we look first at the feedback between passion and vice, but if we think for a moment, the mutual influence between passion and virtue will appear equally natural to us. And habit may end up settling down as éthos, this second nature. As we have seen in the first chapter, the difference between pride as an emotion and as a character or way of being

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is nicely reflected in the distinction between being proud and being a proud person. This is precisely where in the 20th century, the phenomenologist Aurel Kolnai found the difference between pride (Stolz) and hubris (Hochmut). In the language of phenomenology, it is said that the first psychological element is intentional and the second is not. Pride turns into hubris when the emotion or passion which comes from a positive valuation of oneself is not reasonable or fair, or is not appropriately founded. Aquinas classifies this appetite for excellence itself as disordered. Descartes considers this good opinion of oneself as unjust. Spinoza notes that this joy in oneself goes beyond what is just. Hume states that this concept of one’s own value is ‘ill-​founded’. The contrasts between ordered and disordered appetite, just and unjust opinion and good and bad foundation lead us naturally from the territory of passions to that of virtues and vices. When the judgement of oneself is not reasonable, one of the ugliest of passions and vices arise: ordinary hubris or arrogance, which is bad pride. But when the judgement of oneself is reasonable, then one of the most beautiful of passions arises: self-​esteem and magnanimity, which is good pride. For Descartes, it is the contrast between the virtue of generosity and the vice of pride. He notes that, as they are habits, they come from the same passion, composed of the following primitive passions: admiration, joy and love (Passions, a. 160). Hume also states that they come from the same emotion, whether well-​or ill-​founded. The distinction between pride and magnanimity has a rich history, right up to the decision made by Hume to also consider greatness of mind as pride. This decision is not purely verbal but includes a deliberate and subtle correction of the valuation. The room for criticism of arrogance and fatuous pride remains intact. The desire to be in a superior position, the thirst for applause and the disdain for the other tends to proceed from insignificance and small-​mindedness. As Hume notes, the term pride tends to be used above all in this sense. However, the same term pride also begs to be applied to greatness, given that the same basic fact is valued positively: self-​affirmation, ennobled by the rejection of denigration, confidence in oneself, defence of dignity. This modern relationship between pride and greatness, pride and magnanimity, is enormously enriched if we look back again and view it from the turbulent history of relations between magnanimity and humility in the ancient and mediaeval world. On 7 March 1277, acting on the indications of Pope John xxi, a general condemnation was issued of the movement of Aristotelianism and Latin Averroism and of the thesis of one of its most notable representatives, Siger of Brabant, the supporter of the thesis of the double philosophical and religious truth. Although this condemnation covered various aspects, his ideas on

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magnanimity and humility played no small part in it. In fact, this apparently minor affair ended up becoming a violent crucible of philosophy and religion, reason and faith, human nature and relations with God, in the long passage from mediaeval obscurity to modern clarity. After the angel’s sin, the sin of man and the history of the people of Israel, this was another episode in which the dialectics of pride and humility were once more a relevant driving force of intellectual and sentimental history. During the Middle Ages, theologians had no difficulty in thinking of greatness as referring to God and smallness as referring to man. However, the emergence of more complete and rigorous Latin translations of Aristotle in the 13th century triggered an intellectual earthquake. In our case, it was clear that Aristotle conceived of magnanimity as based on the greatness of man, linking it closely with honour; and he did not concede a decent moral space to humility, which was impossible to rescue in its religious sense. It was imperative that all the philosophers and theologians should pronounce themselves on the matter. The philosophical response of Siger and his colleagues was clear: Aristotle’s greatness of soul, which crowns the construction of moral virtues, is purely human; and humility is the virtue of the mediocre. It is a pity that Nietzsche did not take advantage of this episode, as it surely deserved. The Franciscans, with Saint Buenaventura taking the lead, were furious and lobbied for a blanket condemnation of Aristotelianism. Aquinas offers an original explanation of both virtues, to which I will refer shortly. In any case, as I don’t have any capacity or desire to deliberate from scratch, I will use as my foundation the research of scholars and here follow, with gratitude, the work of the great Thomist thinker René-​Antoine Gauthier, op (1951). The legacy of the pagan world is the distinction between political magnanimity and philosophical magnanimity. Broadly speaking, it is a case of magnanimity of action and magnanimity of knowledge. We began our examination with the pride of the Homeric heroes. Achilles and Ajax could not bear affronts to their dignity because they had great and ardent hearts. The legendary legislators and political leaders were engaged in great enterprises. The rulers of the Platonic republic showed their greatness by descending to the cave and assuming political responsibilities after contemplating the good. Aristotelian magnanimity aspires to great things and to the honour they involve. The Stoics assume the cynical principle that happiness is exhausted in virtue, without any need for applause or external goods, and locate all greatness in knowledge and contempt for the world. The ancient conception of magnanimity with which the late mediaeval religious world had to face was that of Aristotle. The purpose of Aristotelian magnanimity, which is the crowning ornament of the virtues, has appeared in the

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eyes of ancient and modern interpreters as a shocking ambiguity: greatness and honour. Although the reference to great actions and estimable things is clear, it is true that Aristotle characterises magnanimity as the virtue of great honours. When it comes to distinguishing it from other habits, he uses the relationship with them. The magnanimous man aspires to great things and feels worthy of them and of the honour they confer. The man with smaller aspirations than those inherent to his capacities suffers from the vice of pusillanimity. The man who is made for small things and has aspirations in accordance with them has a certain virtue which, according to Aristotle, does not have a precise name. In any case, the magnanimous man deals with great things and forgets the small ones; prefers to benefit others than be benefitted and conducts himself with reason and without exaggeration. Aristotle offers a rich and profound reflection on the relationship between intelligence and character in active life, but at the same time considers that intellectual and contemplative life has a certain superiority with respect to a full life. Similarly, the virtue of magnanimity culminates the treatment of moral virtues and combines in it the greatness and virtuous action in all of them; but it appears to lead to the recognition of the superiority of intellectual greatness: the greatness of Socrates, above that of Pericles. Aristotelian philosophical magnanimity is radically different from Stoic indifference and culminates in knowledge, action and honour of the world and for the world. The fathers of the church and mediaeval theologians inherited the Biblical concept of humility. As we have seen, one of the two pillars of the Old Testament is piety or spiritual humility, obedience to God. The second pillar is justice to widows, orphans and foreigners, which in the New Testament adopts more clearly the form of charity or fraternal humility. In their moral reflection, theologians accompany their reflection on humility, the foundation of Christian life, with the concept of grandeur and magnanimity in accordance with it. According to Gauthier, this reflection does not take over the ancient conceptions of political and philosophical magnanimity and basically consists of contrasting the humility of man with the greatness of God. Humility reflects how small man is and magnanimity reflects the greatness of God, as contemplated by man. In the 13th century, the translations of Aristotle made clear that greatness and honour in his Ethics are purely human. We have already seen the philosophical reaction of Siger: magnanimity is of the great and humility of the mediocre; and the theological reaction of Buenaventura: the Ethics of Aristotle can’t be assimilated by Christianity and must be condemned. The magnanimity of the ancients is great hubris because man aspires to it, to use a venerable Biblical expression, by his own powers.

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Aquinas tries to make use of the philosophical concept of magnanimity for the world and, in some way, integrate it and make it compatible with humility towards God. To do so, he offers a number of original, incisive and not fully compatible proposals. First, magnanimity and humility have their place in the treaty on temperance. Magnanimity is the virtue of appetite which tends towards what is great and opposes pusillanimity, the vice by which this tendency sets its target very low. Humility is the virtue which moderates the tendency to the great and is opposed to hubris, by which, as we know, this appetite is immoderate or disordered. In this context, humility is identified with moderation. Given that they are opposed to different vices (pusillanimity and pride), magnanimity and humility are perfectly compatible. Modern philosophers recover this basic complementarity between magnanimity and humility, but ecclesiastical writers are not convinced by this moral conception of humility, for two reasons. First, it is not necessary to postulate two different virtues for the heightening of appetite and its moderation, as the same virtue, in this case magnanimity, regulates the contrary passions. Second, to safeguard its dignity, humility must at all times be considered as an essentially spiritual attitude. There are already purely moral terms for this attitude, like modesty, moderation and temperance. In addition, Aquinas offers another highly original treatment of magnanimity from the point of view of the virtue of hope. To understand it, we have to recall that Aquinas recognises a close analogy between the passions of the sensitive appetite and the emotions of the rational appetite, which often admit the same name. As we have seen, this idea also operates in Descartes, when he is not able to characterise passions through physiological criteria and recognises similar spiritual emotions. The difference lies in that Descartes has demanded too much from the body from the start; as a result, he ends up recognising the primacy of psychological criteria; in contrast, as Thomism recognises from the start the psychological nature of the passions of sensitive appetite, they may maintain their own identity as distinct from spiritual emotions. Thus, hope as the passion and virtue of the sensitive appetite which, as we have seen, is one of the primitive passions of the irascible part, has its own identity which must not be confused with the theological virtue of the same name. In Aquinas, we have to distinguish between moral, intellectual and theological virtue. Magnanimity is the moral virtue that regulates the passion of hope. As with all the passions of the irascible sensitive appetite, hope is geared to the arduous, in this case in the form of the great or excellent. This call to the passion of hope for the arduous fits with the idea that the same virtue—​magnanimity—​regulates the appetite for the great and its moderation. By locating it in the irascible

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drive, the identification of humility with temperance inherent to the concupiscible is more easily ruled out. According to René-​Antoine Gauthier, the great scholar of Thomas Aquinas I am following here, conceiving magnanimity in the field of play of hope is what allows Aquinas to fully take on the Aristotelian concept and integrate it in turn into the Christian worldview. The moral virtue of magnanimity regulates passion and the appetite for the great things of the world: noble actions, the desire for knowledge, material goods. Magnanimity is dedicated to the world. Aristotelian magnanimity aspires to greatness, not to flight from the world. But according to Aquinas, this aspiration is compatible with the most intimate feeling that the powers of magnanimity themselves (which aspire to what is noble in the world) are deep down a gift. If the magnanimous person lives their life and their own strength as a gift and feels the emotion of a creature, they will combine greatness for the Earth and humility for Heaven. From a more current perspective, it is not necessary to take on all these subtleties in order to reject pusillanimity and extol magnanimity in humility. This is what Pope Francis did in one of his morning meditations (L’Osservatore Romano, 2 May 2013). 5

Pride and Dignity

Having left behind the mediaeval world, the passions and habits of pride, magnanimity and humility will initiate new paths in the modern world. The new rational enterprises prepare peacefully for the philosophical rediscovery of another Mediterranean, or, as they say, a new reinvention of the wheel: the enlightened desire for knowledge. The new misfortunes of passion unfortunately lack philosophical tranquillity and are due, as we know, to another appearance of the Devil. The Faustian drive is disordered appetite for one’s own excellence in knowledge and the Enlightenment is its ordering or domestication. In any case, in the Cartesian cartography of human nature, the passion and virtue of generosity take pride of place. Generosity is the Cartesian version of magnanimity. Descartes recognises that, at root, they are the same; and the reason he proposes for a change of name does him honour. We already know that the idea of greatness of the soul comes, in fact, from the great and ardent heart that poets attribute to heroes. Descartes is made uncomfortable with the notion of greatness of soul because he is convinced (unlike Nietzsche) that God has given all of us equally great souls. Nietzsche considers that our souls neither come from God, nor are all equally great.

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Despite his promising approach, the treatment offered by Descartes, like other modern philosophers I am referring to, is limited to the moral territory. Generosity and pride come from the good opinion of oneself and the corresponding passion, according to whether they are justified or not. For Descartes, human will is a free cause, which makes us like God, and generosity is the firm determination of using it well. Generosity tends to be accompanied by virtuous humility, which consists of recognising in others the same capacity and will for good, however many difficulties it may be subject to. This is why there is complementarity between generosity and humility. This Cartesian conception of generosity demonstrates an advantage in the first Cartesian division of mental phenomena with respect to the division made by Aquinas. As we have seen, the first criterion for both thinkers is the difference between activity and passivity. In Thomist psychology, the two great possibilities of the human mind are to receive objects and aspire to them. In Cartesian psychology, thoughts or mental acts are passive or active. But beneath this apparent similarity there lies an important difference. Thomas Aquinas divides both intellective acts and appetitive acts into rational and sensitive, while Descartes then uses other criteria: the passions in general may be caused by the soul or by the body and the actions or volitions end up in one or the other. For Aquinas, the category of appetitive acts includes both the free acts of rational appetite or will, and servile acts of concupiscible and irascible sensitive appetite, whose modifications induce passion. In the same category of appetitive acts are included acts that are strictly free and other mental phenomena that are either not strictly free or not free. Contemporary philosophy which conceives action as an articulation of beliefs and desires suffers from this same insufficiency as Thomist philosophy: that of including in the same category of desires or preferences, in the broad sense, phenomena that are as distinct as desire and volition. In my opinion, to understand rational actions correctly, we must distinguish them using the criterion of passivity and activity. In contrast, the category of actions of the soul only includes free acts for Descartes, while other tendencies are included in the category of passions of the soul in the strict sense. The passions of the soul, in turn, form part of the class of perceptions or passions in the broad sense, together with other representations and affects. The distinction between activity and passivity is equivalent to the distinction between freedom and passivity, so freedom occupies the place it deserves, next to the great virtue which rests in it: Cartesian generosity. For his part, the great Jewish Flemish-​ Portuguese philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, also clearly distinguishes arrogance, inherent to hubris, and contentment with oneself, which is the heritage of the wise. But this has to be

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considered (in a way that leaves us simple souls far behind) according to a conception of will which strictly contradicts Descartes: will is not a free cause, but a necessary cause. Moreover, for the matter in hand, we are particularly interested in his original conception of humility, in accordance with the above and used diligently by Nietzsche: humility is the sadness of the man who contemplates his own impotence (Ethics iii, def. 26). Spinoza holds that humility is always a passion and never a virtue, and submits as proof the following argument. The essence of man is striving or power. Man, who is power, can only contemplate his being, which is power, with satisfaction in himself. If a man believes he perceives his own weakness, in reality he is contemplating an external obstacle to the development of his power and this realisation feeds his lucidity, that is, his power (Ethics iv, prop. 53). So, man may not perceive his own impotence, and the consideration of humility as a virtue, which depends on reason, adds an impossible fact. In the philosophy of Nietzsche, this impossibility is transvalued and transformed, as if by magic, into the strength of the strong. Finally, in the philosophy of David Hume, the great Scottish philosopher, we find an approach to pride based on strength and virtue. After the corresponding rejection of arrogance and petulance, Hume notes that reasonable self-​affirmation and self-​awareness does not tend to be called pride, as is that without reasonable grounds, but admits the term with the appropriate qualifications. Noble pride is a feature of character and is rooted in the affirmation of oneself and one’s own dignity. It is an ontological pride. And this nobility or greatness of mind is not the patrimony of the greats in power or knowledge, but rather of everyone who affirms their identity and rejects any attempt against their dignity. Those who are lacking in it are one step from baseness and degeneracy (Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, sec. 7: 204). The reflections of modern philosophers about pride and humility are copious and include more things. I have only tried to give a general idea here of their novel nature. But I can’t be detained on this point any longer, because the Devil is making another entrance in the history of pride. I will try to return to the relationship between pride and humility later on and in a more updated fashion. What I don’t want to leave out here is that, together with their rejection of previous philosophies and theologies, the greats also sometimes find a space to express a certain gratitude or, at least, the benefit of the doubt. In accordance with the severe judgement of the mature Hume, not without weighty reasons, the monastical virtues of celibacy, fasting, penitence, mortification, self-​denial, humility, silence and solitude, are, in reality, vices (Enquiry, sec. 9, 1: 219). But perhaps this judgement does not completely wipe out the more prudent judgement of his youth, according to which ‘Whether this virtue

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of humility has been rightly understood, I shall not pretend to determine’ (Treatise of Human Nature iii, 3, sec. 2: ‘Of greatness of mind’). I will now make an effort to take up the challenge offered by David Hume. But the task is not easy and requires some care. The philosophical conquest of noble pride as a virtue, a new form of integrity and dignity, does not prevent the Devil from asking to have his say. The famous German philologist, philosopher and musician Friedrich Nietzsche exercises a growing fascination on thinkers and intellectuals of all ages and conditions, on this side and the other of the Pyrenees, and across and beyond the oceans. I have seen, listened and read it with my own eyes (mit meinen eigenen Augen)—​if one can also listen with the eyes, as Quevedo and Heidegger insist. I have postponed the consideration of original Christianity until his stellar apparition, because his interpretation is powerful, epoch-​making and unavoidable. Nietzsche’s relationship with the Old Testament is ambiguous. First, he recognises a great continuity between the Jewish and Christian spirit; and second, he admires the Old Testament, but not the New Testament: ‘ich liebe das neue Testament nicht […], alle Achtung vor dem alten Testament!’ (The Genealogy of Morals iii, 22). His relationship with the Old Testament is ambiguous, but his relationship with the New Testament is not.

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Humility and Resentment 1

The Morality of Aristocrats and the Morality of Slaves

In his analysis of the origin and value of morality, Friedrich Nietzsche offers a key distinction between the morality of rulers and the morality of plebeians. In many ancient cultures, the original distinction between good and bad (gut/​ schlecht) is the distinction between the superior and inferior, the excellent and the mediocre, the warriors and the plebs, power and servitude, strength and weakness. According to Nietzsche, this is an axiological distinction; that is, a form of valuing some things with respect to others, but not a moral distinction. Not all valuations are moral valuations. The strictly moral distinction between good and bad (gut/​böse) is a subsequent transformation and perversion of this original distinction. The valuation of warriors’ strength and excellence, says Nietzsche, is characteristic to all ancient aristocracies: Roman, Arab, German, Japanese, Greek, Viking (The Genealogy of Morals i, 11). Although his illustrations come above all from the Greeks and Romans, he presents this as a generalised phenomenon. In contrast to the meanness and acedia of priests, warriors are bursting with innocence, force and brutality. Nietzsche describes lyrically and with fascination the energy and pride of nobles, their lack of concern, vitality, respect for their peers and cruelty towards the weak. The noble lacks compassion, but also rancour. His life is external, committed to action. He has no awareness of the damage caused, but also no memory for damage suffered. Nietzsche classifies him as a wolf, a bird of prey, a blond Germanic beast (ibid.). The morals or mentality of nobles is the valuation of force, power and health. It is a mentality or way of thinking and valuing prior to the introduction of actual moral concepts. In one sense, it is the primacy of animality, instincts and immediacy. In another, it is the inherently human arena of power, war and play rather than the servitude of work, the search for sustenance and occupation with one’s primary needs. As Nietzsche points out, nobles consider that the life of people who are slaves to these duties is mere survival, worthy of beasts of burden (Genealogy i, 10). The morality of slaves is the inversion of the mentality of nobles. The morality of slaves is consideration of the weak as superior to the strong in a new dimension, which is the moral dimension. According to Nietzsche, the original distinction between good and bad, superior and inferior (gut/​schlecht) has

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_011

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been displaced by a new moral distinction between good and evil (gut/​böse). The weak are good, meek and naive, whereas the strong are bad, evil and perverse. Compassion is good and violence is bad. Nietzsche considers that this is an axiological perversion arising from the hate and impotence of the weak with respect to the strong. Judaism and Christianity bear the greatest historical blame for this transformation of values, which brings with it the decadence of humanity. Nothing of what has been done on Earth against ‘the noble’, ‘the violent’, ‘the masters’, ‘the powerful’ deserves to be mentioned if it is compared with what the Jews have done against them: the Jews, that priestly people, who in opposing their enemies and conquerors were ultimately satisfied with nothing less than a radical revaluation of their enemies’ values, in other words by an act of the most spiritual revenge. This is the only thing which was appropriate precisely to a priestly people, the people embodying the most deeply repressed priestly vengeance. It was the Jews who, with an awe-​inspiring logical consistency, dared to invert the aristocratic value equation (good =​noble =​powerful =​beautiful =​happy =​beloved of God) and to hang on to this inversion with their teeth, the teeth of the most abysmal hatred (the hatred of impotence), saying ‘the wretched are the good; the poor, the impotent, the lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly alone are pious, alone are blessed by God, blessedness is for them alone; while you, you the noble and powerful, are on the contrary the evil, the cruel, the lustful, the insatiable, the godless for all eternity; and you shall for all eternity be the unblessed, the accursed and the damned!’ One knows who inherited this Jewish revaluation. That is what happened: from the trunk of that tree of vengefulness and hatred, Jewish hatred, the most profound and sublime hatred, the hatred which creates ideals and reverses values, the like of which has never existed on earth before, has grown something equally incomparable, a new love, the most profound and sublime kind of love—​and from what other trunk could it have grown? But one should not imagine it grew as the true denial of that thirst for revenge, as the opposite of Jewish hatred! No, the reverse is true! That love grew out of it as its crown, as its triumphant crown spreading itself farther and farther into the purest brightness and sunlight, driven as it were into the domain of light and the heights in pursuit of the goals of that hatred—​victory, spoil and seduction—​by the same impulse that drove the roots of that hatred deeper and deeper and more and more covetously into all that was profound and evil. This Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate gospel of love, this

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‘Redeemer’ who brought blessedness and victory to the poor; the sick, and the sinners—​was he not this seduction in its most uncanny and irresistible form, a seduction and bypath to precisely those Jewish values and new ideals? Did Israel not attain the ultimate goal of its sublime vengefulness precisely through the bypath of this ‘Redeemer’, this ostensible opponent and disintegrator of Israel? Genealogy i, 7–​8

2

The Transvaluation of Values

The replacement of the mentality of the nobles by the morality of the common people is the rebellion of slaves through morality and constitutes the mature fruit of ressentiment. Ressentiment is, in the felicitous expression of Max Scheler, a ‘mental self-​intoxication’. Two thinkers as distinct as Nietzsche and Scheler share in what is essential their analysis of the phenomenon of ressentiment, but not its application to Christian morality; although Scheler does recognise it in some forms of philanthropy (Scheler, Ressentiment in the Construction of Morals, gw iii, 37, 96). According to this analysis, ressentiment is a psychological mechanism that works in two steps. First, the subject has a great esteem for something but realises that he is not capable of achieving it. He then issues the judgement that, in reality, is not something valuable or is not worthwhile. Up to this point, this is like the tale of the fox and the grapes: as I can’t reach the grapes, I trick myself saying that they are green. Ressentiment appears if we take a second step. Although, consciously or not, the subject has tried to change his initial valuation, in reality he can’t get rid of it. This valuation continues to operate in him, together with the renewed awareness of his impotence with respect to achieving said good and the capacity of others to do so. Nietzsche and Scheler argue with great lucidity how the links in the chain, from the initial valuation, the awareness of impotence, the attempt at self-​deceit, the persistence of the valuation and the impotence and comparison with others generate the psychological self-​poisoning of ressentiment. Nietzsche’s thesis is that the replacement of the mentality of nobles with the morality of the common people is the result of the ressentiment of the weak against the strong. Initially, the weak share the mentality of the strong and place the greatest value on energy, power, indifference and brutality. The weak want to be strong, but they can’t. And so, they invent the moral of the losers: ‘Blessed be the meek’. But the weak do not believe their own lie; they

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continue to value strength, realising their impotence and poisoning themselves with their new morality. In accordance with the new form of valuation, humility and passivity are morally good (gut), while strength and violence are morally bad (böse). In this inversion of values, one should pursue poverty and simplicity and shun wealth and power. As we have seen, Nietzsche attributes this spiritual revolution going back thousands of years to Judaism and Christianity, and affirms that, little by little, it has imposed itself on the modern mentality. And he holds it responsible for the omnipresence of the sick and crippled who prevent the human species from transitioning to higher forms (Genealogy i, 11; The Antichrist 24). To prove that the morality of the weak is a great lie which is the result of their hatred and ressentiment, Nietzsche turns to the arguments of two great Christian authorities: Tertullian, a Father of the Church of the 2nd and 3rd Century; and Saint Thomas Aquinas himself. Although the quotation from Aquinas is not literal, Nietzsche does reflect his idea faithfully. According to these impressive testimonies, the greatest satisfaction of Christians in Heaven will be to watch as those condemned to Hell burn. According to Nietzsche, this hallucinatory vengeance reveals the insincerity of the criticism of the strong. The humble want to be powerful, but can’t manage it in this world so they invent another to take their vengeance. The weak continue to value strength above everything and the invention of the inversion of values reveals their ressentiment. Perhaps we could guess it ourselves: but better if a very relevant authority in these matters, Thomas Aquinas, does so himself. ‘Beati in regno coelesti’ he says as gently as a lamb, ‘videbunt poenas damnatorum, ut beatitudo illis magis complaceat’. [In the kingdom of heaven, the blessed will see the punishment of the damned, so that they will derive all the more pleasure from their heavenly bliss]. Or if one would like to hear the same thing in a stronger tone, perhaps from the mouth of a triumphant Church Father, who advised his Christians against the cruel pleasures of the public games; but why? ‘For in fact faith offers us much more—​he says in De Spectaculis, c. 29 f.—​something much stronger; thanks to the Redemption, quite other joys are available for us; in place of athletes, we have our martyrs; if we crave blood, we have the blood of Christ … But think of what awaits us on the day of his return, the day of his triumph!’. And then the enraptured visionary goes on: ‘At enim supersunt alia spectacula […] Yes, and there are other spectacles: that last perpetual day of Judgement, that day unlooked for by the nations, which they deride, when the world hoary with age, and all its many products, shall

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be consumed in one great flame. How great a spectacle then! How many things to admire! How many things to laugh about! There will I be joyful! There will I exult, as I see so many illustrious monarchs, who had been said to be received into Heaven, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove himself, and those, too, who bore witness to them! Seeing too how governors of provinces, who persecuted the name of Christ, in fires fiercer than those with which in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of Christ! Seeing also the very philosophers. In fact, who taught their followers that nothing belongs to God, whom they assured that either they had no souls, or that they would never return to their former bodies, now covered with shame before the poor deluded disciples, as they are consumed together by fire! And seeing how tremble not before the judgement of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but before Christ, whom they did not expect!’. Genealogy i, 15

Already in the Preface to this book, Nietzsche points to the need to criticise moral values, to question the very value of these values. And in the note which concludes the first essay of this work, he expresses his desire to promote research on the history of morals and the problem of value, declares the hope that his work can give a strong boost in this direction and proposes that a series of academic prizes should be offered on these subjects. In this passage, Nietzsche insists on the need to investigate the value of the value judgements made until then and sums up the task of investigating values as follows: The question: What is the value of this or that table of values or ‘morals’? must be viewed from a variety of perspectives; in particular, the question, ‘valuable for what?’ can’t be viewed with too much subtlety. Something, for example, that possessed obvious value in relation to the longest possible survival of a race (or to the enhancement of its power of adaptation to a particular climate or to the preservation of the greatest number) would by no means possess the same value if it were a question, for instance, of producing a stronger type. The well-​being of the majority and the well-​ being of the few are opposite viewpoints of value. To consider the former a priori of higher value may be left to the naiveté of English biologists … All the sciences have from now on to prepare the way for the future task of the philosophers: this task, understood as the solution of the philosophical problem of value, the determination of the hierarchy of values. Genealogy i, 17

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Thus, Nietzsche expressly links the problem of order and hierarchy or value of values to a specific purpose: Valuable for what? In his criticism of the morals of the weak and of compassion, he says that it is a transformation of values which includes two steps. First, the inversion of values, putting above what was below. Second, the modification of the meaning of the initial values: the vital distinction between good/​bad is replaced by a moral distinction of good/​evil. The German term used by Nietzsche (Umwertung) includes the lexeme wert-​ (werten, der Wert) and contains the idea not only of valuing in another way, but also of generating a new value. For this reason, of particular note among the terms used to translate this term (transformation, inversion, subversion) is one that includes the same lexeme: the transvaluation of values. Although Nietzsche notes in the above passage that value has to be considered with respect to something, in many other places he presents the aforementioned axiological transformation not only as a change of order and sense with respect to something, but also as a simple replacement of a more adequate or even more truthful order by another which is not. Thus, on a number of occasions, Nietzsche uses the expressions ‘higher values’ or ‘more noble values’, without any further definition. But it is also true that in other places he considers it worthwhile to specify with respect to what we can talk of superiority or even progress. In that case, the terms of reference are the life and the species or type of man. One has taken the value of these ‘values’ as something given, real and effective, located beyond all doubt; so far there has not been the least doubt or hesitation in considering the ‘good man’ to be higher in value to the ‘evil man’, higher in value in the sense of being favourable, useful, advantageous to man as such (including the future of man). What if the reverse were true? What would happen if inherent in the ‘good’ there were also a symptom of regression, and also a danger, a seduction, a poison, a narcotic, through which the present were living at the expense of the future? It may perhaps be living more comfortably, less dangerously, but also with an inferior, baser style?… So that precisely morality would be to blame if the highest power and splendour actually possible to the type man was never in fact attained? So that precisely morality was the danger of dangers? Genealogy, Prologue, 6

Thus, the transvaluation of values does not mean relativity, subjectivity, or, still less, the destruction of all value judgements. ‘Beyond good and evil (böse, morally bad) […] does not mean’, says Nietzsche, ‘beyond good and bad (schlecht,

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vitally bad)’ (Genealogy i, 17). In his critique of Christian morality, Nietzsche argues that some values are higher than others and that the morality of the weak and compassion is not just another relative morality, but a perverse and profoundly mistaken morality. The basic value with respect to which we can speak of axiological superiority and inferiority, progress and decadence, is life and a higher species. ‘Humanity as a mass, sacrificed to the flowering of a single stronger species of man—​ that would be an advance’ (Genealogy ii, 12). And Nietzsche strongly combats nihilism, which does not mean here the absence of value judgements, but the primacy of the morality of humility, meekness and compassion, inherited from Christianity. The anti-​nihilist is the Antichrist, the victor over God and nothingness, who must come one day (Genealogy ii, 24). 3

Christian Humility, Resentment and Fraternity

The above outline of the Nietzschean critique of Christian morality has been essentially based on The Genealogy of Morals. I will now attempt to extend the perspective on Christian morality, but exclusively using the New Testament. Christianity is a vast, complex reality and the Nietzschean corpus is rich and also complex. But the New Testament is the set of foundational documents of Christianity, while Nietzsche’s Genealogy is the most systematic and solidly based work for the issue that we are dealing with here. So there is no doubt that we should begin here. However, having established this contrast and the two major forms of conceiving Christian humility, based on ressentiment and fraternity, recourse to other works by Nietzsche will allow us to discover other aspects of his criticism and other reflections of his on love and pride, some perhaps surprising and of undoubted interest for our research. As we have seen, to illustrate the operation of resentment in establishing the morality of the weak, which he mainly attributes to Christianity, Nietzsche provides us with two eloquent texts: one is a couple of lines by Thomas Aquinas and the other is a longer one by Tertullian. Although we admit the relevance of these passages, the question is whether the Nietzschean interpretation of the Christian morality of humility and compassion is adequate in a more fundamental and general form. To address this question, I will first present episodes and passages from the New Testament which have not been used or exploited sufficiently by Nietzsche and which I consider lend weight to his own theory on humility and ressentiment. I will then pursue the analysis of Christian humility from other angles, which give greater weight to different elements and suggest that a different interpretation should be considered.

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A passage of the New Testament which, certainly, recalls Tertullian and may serve to reinforce the Nietzschean interpretation is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in the gospel of Luke (Luke 16, 19–​31). The poor man Lazarus is held by Abraham in his bosom and the two contemplate the rich man who burns in hell. Replying to the latter’s pleas, Abraham answers: ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony’ (v. 25). In addition, Nietzsche himself refers to the Revelation of St John. For his purposes, the description of the judgement, punishment and lamentations for Babylon in Chapters 17–​19 could serve as an example: ‘I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations”’ (Rev 17, 3–​5). However, in my opinion, in order to conceive of the Christian humility of the New Testament as the result of ressentiment, what is most important is to examine the explicitly moral exhortations included in the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. The version of Luke is particularly relevant (although it takes place on flat ground), because it includes the misfortunes awaiting in the next life for those who enjoy wealth and honours in this. According to the Nietzschean interpretation, the poor and exiled value wealth and honours as much as the rich and powerful. The inversion of luck in Heaven is a hallucinatory vengeance, a result of the impotence and hatred of those who have not stopped believing in their initial valuations. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. luke 6, 20–​26

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Now, despite passages such as this in which there is an emphasis on the inversion in Heaven, I believe that another much more recurrent and important aspect of the exhortations to humility and meekness can be discerned in the texts. How can we know whether humility is a mask of impotence or the guiding light of a new heart? The accusation of impotence involves something of an ad hominem argument and a value judgement that does not appear to cover all the elements of the morality of humility and the compassion in the New Testament. The oldest document of the New Testament, the first letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, already gives a striking answer to the Nietzschean accusation of impotence. ‘As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children […]. You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God’ (1 Thess 2, 5–​9). We have never sought fame and wealth, says Paul, ‘though we might have made demands [asserted our authority, nasb] as apostles of Christ’ (δυνάμενοι ἐν βάρει εἶναι ὡς Χριστοῦ ἀπόστολοι). According to Paul, giving up wealth and fame and the commitment to humility and work is not the result of hatred and impotence, but a voluntary commitment, because what greater strength and power could be imagined than being an apostle of Christ? Nietzsche considers that the weak can’t stop being weak and the strong can’t stop being strong. In contrast, Paul says that, at least for the apostles, meekness is not due to impotence, but to a voluntary will. Of course, for Nietzsche, the philosopher of suspicion, Paul’s argument does no more than feed the self-​deceit of the weak. But, as in the case of any appeal to hidden intentions and specious purposes, Nietzsche’s accusation does not of itself appear to be of an evidentiary nature. Whoever does not want to simply accept Paul’s authority (which is not my case) has another argument that is fully analogous, made by Jesus of Nazareth himself. When Judas kissed him in betrayal, one of those who were with him took his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave. Jesus ordered him to put back his sword and insisted that he would not rebel; not because he could not, but because he did not want to, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen in this way?’ (Matt 26, 52–​54).

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Whatever the case may be, in order to properly examine the nature of Christian humility, we should also look at other elements of the New Testament. In my opinion, the essential dimension into which we are introduced by humility precedes the more narrowly moral considerations on virtue and vice to which Nietzsche pays close attention. Whether or not it is true that it is a case of self-​deceit of the resentful who prefer to be strong, what the Christian morality of the New Testament says is simply that this dimension is love for each other, that is, fraternity. The acceptance of pain and illness, concern for others, the dignity of work and equality in Christ are all forms of fraternal love. The consideration of pain, work and equality allows humility to be seen not as a form of impotence, but of fraternity. Jesus goes to Jerusalem, and before him ‘lay many invalids—​blind, lame, and paralysed’ (John 5, 3). To physical humility is added intellectual: ‘Like Christ | it’s the same for the stupid | and the smart ones’ (Como el Cristo, | igual con los tontos | que con los listos), it’s child’s play, says the poet Isabel Escudero. Jesus cures the sick and tells them the good news. And this news is the mission he gives to his disciples: ‘Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you”’ (Luke 10, 3–​9). The worker deserves his wages and Paul insists once again that the apostles and disciples of Jesus live together and work with those to whom they spread the word, working with their own hands: ‘I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing. You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”’ (Acts 20, 33–​35). The culmination of the morality of humility and fraternity is equality. Perhaps the passage in which Jesus confirms most eloquently the equal value of all human beings is when he washes the feet of his disciples: ‘You call me Teacher and Lord—​and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers

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greater than the one who sent them’ (John 13, 13–​16). Paul was also clear about this: ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal 3, 28). These three dimensions of the fraternal spirit (pain, work and equality) allow better calibration of the Nietzschean interpretation of Christian morality. I believe this can form the basis for a proper distinction between humility as impotence and humility as fraternity. Jesus encourages care for the sick. Friedrich insists that the healthy be kept away from them. But no greater or more calamitous misunderstanding is possible than for the happy, well-​constituted, powerful in soul and body, to begin to doubt their right to happiness in this fashion. Away with this ‘inverted world’! Away with this shameful emasculation of feeling! That the sick should not make the healthy sick—​and this is what such an emasculation would involve—​should surely be our supreme concern on earth; but this requires above all that the healthy should be segregated from the sick, guarded even from the sight of the sick, that they may not confound themselves with the sick. Or is it their task, perhaps, to be nurses or physicians? But no worse misunderstanding and denial of their task can be imagined: the higher ought not to degrade itself to the status of an instrument of the lower, the pathos of distance ought to keep their tasks eternally separate! Their right to exist; the privilege of the full-​toned bell over the false and cracked; is a thousand times greater: they alone are our warranty for the future, they alone are liable for the future of man. The sick can never have the ability or obligation to do what they can do, what they ought to do: but if they are to be able to do what they alone ought to do, how can they at the same time be physicians; consolers, and ‘saviors’ of the sick? And therefore let us have fresh air! fresh air! and keep clear of the madhouses and hospitals of culture! And therefore let us have good company, our company! Or solitude, if it must be! But away from the sickening fumes of inner corruption and the hidden rot of disease! … So that we may, at least for a while yet, guard ourselves, my friends, against the two worst contagions that may be reserved just for us—​against the great nausea at man! against great pity for man! Genealogy iii, 14

Paul stresses the dignity of work, ‘Anyone unwilling to work (ἐργάζεσθαι) should not eat’ (2 Thess 3, 10). Friedrich highlights the repulsion provoked in

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the aristocrat, ‘One should not overlook the almost benevolent nuances that the Greek nobility, for example, bestows on all the words it employs to distinguish the lower orders from itself; look how they are continuously mingled and sweetened with a kind of pity, consideration, and forbearance, so that finally almost all the words referring to the common man have remained as expressions signifying “unhappy”, “pitiable” (compare δειλός [fearful], δείλαιος [cowardly] πονηρός [base], µοχθηρός [despicable], the last two of which properly designate the common man as a slave to work and beast of burden)’ (Genealogy i, 10). Jesus preaches equality; Friedrich preaches inequality (Genealogy i, 17; The Antichrist, 43, 57, 62). Paul destroys the equality of all with his insistence on Christian submission of women to men. But, unfortunately, Nietzsche’s own insults against women, which would be easy to reel off here, are priceless. In any case, let’s recall the way Nietzsche expresses the problem of the value of equality and inequality, in a text cited above, ‘The well-​being of the majority and the well-​being of the few are opposite viewpoints of value: To consider the former a priori of higher value may be left to the naiveté of English biologists … All the sciences have from now on to prepare the way for the future task of the philosophers: this task, understood as the solution of the philosophical problem of value, the determination of the hierarchy of values’ (Genealogy i, 17). In my opinion, the contrast between the good of the majority and the good of the minority expresses in a masterly fashion the axiological problem of equality. The well-​being of the majority—​supreme rights (Vorrecht) of the majority in i, 16—​expresses, at base, equality in value of all human beings and the well-​being of the minority, the contrary. It is one of the most basic axiological options. In On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche denies that the well-​being of the majority, to use his own expression, has more value in itself than the well-​ being of the minority, while the New Testament states the contrary. Humility as impotence corresponds to the former and humility as fraternity to the latter. How do we know whether the humility in question is impotence or fraternity? At the start of this section, I tried to be more Nietzschean than Nietzsche himself by going in depth into his interpretation of humility as impotence, while in the latter pages I have presented humility as fraternity. But deep down, Nietzsche does not allow any help; and there are times when he lets his heart peep out. As we will see in a moment, Nietzsche is also affected by pain and cruelty, as is clear, for example, in Sections 3 and 6 of the second essay of The Genealogy of Morals or in many points in The Antichrist (20–​22, 38). Der große Hans, ach wie so klein. It is true that Nietzsche states that religions are systems for institutionalising cruelty, and he rightly reproaches them harshly for preaching love and fostering cruelty. Now, I think that criticism of cruelty

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can’t be based on fascination for strength, but on inexpressible emotions of fraternity and compassion in the face of pain. Without doubt, birds of prey will smile and tell Nietzsche that his criticism of cruelty reveals a soft heart and the morality of losers … We will go back to the criticism of cruelty when calibrating the Nietzschean programme of the transvaluation of all values. But before tackling the ambiguities of Nietzschean morality, we will briefly examine those of Christian morality. 4

The Ambiguities of Christian Morality

The New Testament is a sacred book (or set of books). Its basic message is religious, but it also contains a moral message. Obviously, these pages do not deal with the religious or doctrinal message of Christianity, except in relation to Christian morality. The moral discourse of the New Testament is intertwined with its religious discourse, but when we talk of Christian morality, we focus on moral discourse, which can be developed and discussed rationally, although it can’t be abstracted from the whole set of revealed doctrinal matters of which it forms part. Well, in my opinion the New Testament includes moral teachings and observations that are presented as simultaneously dependent and independent of religious discourse. Their singular nature appears to be the origin of what we could perhaps classify as the ambiguities of Christian morality. I am going to focus on two, which were in fact detected and used conscientiously by Friedrich Nietzsche. An example of the first of them is in the passage on the left and right hand in the gospel according to Matthew. Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matt 6, 1–​4

The exhortation to give alms, not with a sounding of the trumpet, but so that one hand does not know what the other is doing, is a perfectly moral exhortation. However, in passages such as these it is entwined with the recompense

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expected in heaven from the person who acts morally. If we incorporate recompense into moral discourse, the latter is blurred and loses its nature to some extent. There are, of course, many similar passages in the New Testament. The following is another eloquent example which states that conduct is moral if nothing is expected in exchange, but then combines it with a reward in heaven, ‘But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return (μηδὲν ἀπελπίζοντες). Your reward will be great (καὶ ἔσται ὁ μισθὸς ὑμῶν πολύς), and you will be children of the Most High’ (Luke 6, 35). As a good musician, Nietzsche clearly perceived the dissonance between virtue and reward; and to point it out he refers to another passage in Matthew, ‘“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matt 5, 46)—​The principle of “Christian love”: it wants, at the end of the day, to be paid well’ (Antichrist 45). Similarly: ‘You love your virtue as a mother her child; but when has a mother ever wished to be paid for her love?’ (Zarathustra ii, ‘On the virtuous’). So, Nietzsche himself pointed out this ambiguity clearly. Nevertheless, it should be noted that to do so he had to follow the logic of things, inevitably. At least at this time, he had to leave to one side his proposal for the supreme principle of morality, which I hope I am allowed to call the great moral giveaway: ‘Alas, that you would understand my word: “Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will”’ (Zarathustra iii, ‘On virtue that makes small’). Elsewhere, following a careful and lucid examination of Kantian ethics, this principle reaches the category of categorical giveaway, ‘An action demanded by the instinct of life is proved to be right by the pleasure that accompanies it’ (Antichrist 11). Whatever the case may be, it is true that if we incorporate reward into the imperatives, they lose their moral nature and become hypothetical or strategic imperatives. However, although passages such as the above can be seen from this perspective, it does not alone appear to be a reasonable interpretation in general. In my understanding, the moral discourse of the New Testament has another important dimension, which invites us to carry out a more nuanced interpretation. This moral discourse appears to be, in the expression I used above (and in the absence of a better one) at the same time dependent and independent of religious discourse. Religion is the reality which impregnates everything, and morality lies at the heart of it. To consider that the reward in Heaven is simply incorporated into morality, as in the previous reading, is to ignore that religion is the source of the meaning of the New Testament, and not just another element of it. The moral discourse is independent inasmuch as it is rational and has its own rules. And it is dependent inasmuch as it takes place in the heart of religion. A moral rule is not followed because a reward is expected,

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although religious reality and the expectation of heaven are inevitably present. Christians know that Heaven is for the just, but they may perhaps follow moral rules out of respect for them, rather than buy their place in it. If they follow the rules to buy Heaven, they will lose it. Naturally, the philosopher of suspicion may laugh out loud at these subtleties. Let’s now move on to the second form adopted by the ambiguity of Christian morality, which refers to equality, and it is also due to the overlapping between morality and religion. To do so, we should start with another essential duality, although it is scandalous to deal with it in only a few lines: that of faith and works. The key value, as an alternative to ressentiment, which I believe I have found to interpret Christian humility or éthos is fraternity, which appears to me to be a moral and religious value at the same time. As we have seen, the acceptance of pain, the dignity of work and equality of all human beings are forms of fraternal love. In my understanding, fraternity is presented an infinite number of times in the New Testament, and in turn separately, as the new commandment and as evidence of fundamental morality. Here, the ambiguity of Christian morality is accompanied by the naturalness with which it presents as identical two things which also appear to be different: faith and works. This is from the apostle of faith, ‘and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing’ (1 Cor 13, 2); and the apostle of works, ‘Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress’ (James 1, 27). Now, in Christianity, God is the basis of equality and love. This is attested by Paul and John, the earliest and latest authors of the New Testament, and this has been amply upheld by tradition. For Paul, equality depends on Christ, ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal 3, 28). And John, the specialist in charity, fraternity and Christian love, holds that it is based on God: ‘Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. […] Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. […] We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also’ (1 John 4, 7–​21). Aquinas reflects this doctrine faithfully, ‘Now the aspect under which our neighbour is to be loved, is God, since what we ought to love in our neighbour is that he may be in God. Hence it is clear that it is specifically the same act whereby we love God, and whereby we love our neighbour. Consequently, the habit of charity

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extends not only to the love of God, but also to the love of our neighbour’ (ii–​ ii, q. 25, a. 1 co). As a good philosopher, Nietzsche identified as clearly as possible the original foundation of equality and Christian love and did not hide his repugnance (Beyond Good and Evil ii, 60). Christian tradition has in general maintained this foundation, but in the modern world equality and fraternity do not rest on God, but on other foundations. The relationship between them, and their redundancy or incompatibility, is complex and fascinating, but forms part of another story. In other narratives and legitimations, equality and fraternity are the two pillars of the modern world. According to Nietzsche, however, equality is a great lie, ‘For, to me justice speaks thus: “Men are not equal”. Nor shall they become equal! What would my love of the superman be if I spoke otherwise?’ (Zarathustra ii, ‘On the Tarantulas’). On love, fraternity and morality in general, he provides us with other interesting ideas, to which we are going to dedicate the last section. They offer us with some new intuitions on pride. But before that, it is necessary to examine a final element of Christian morality. It is true that Nietzsche did not miss the two ambiguities which I have just pointed out. But it is striking that he did not examine another point, which does not constitute another ambiguity, but is the real black point of Christian morality. It appears clearly in the parable of the sisters Martha and Mary. Jesus and Mary were talking animatedly, ‘but Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her”’ (Luke 10, 40–​42). It is difficult to exaggerate the terrible influence this parable has had, not only on the history of philosophical reflection and Christian theology about the active and contemplative life, but also on the practice of both dimensions of life. St. Teresa of Jesus is an exception and saw clearly that this text cannot be authentic. After the subtle and beautiful description of the journey of the soul through all the dwellings of the inner castle until its marriage with God, the saint found it necessary to devote the last chapter of her last abode to correcting the parable of Martha and Mary, so that her disciples would not be tempted to use it, together with the mystical union, to ‘go to sleep’. Teresa could only turn to the Gospel to correct it, mistakenly identifying Mary of Bethany with the prostitute who appears shortly before, in Luke 7: 36-50. Mary’s molliness would be excused by the fact that she had previously worked by wiping the Lord’s feet with her hair.

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The parable of Martha and Mary is the origin of evil; but we can’t be satisfied with it. At this critical juncture, only philology can rescue us. Fortunately, and not going into too much detail, the fact is that the text as we have it forms part of the best-​known family of codices, but there is another which has been silenced. With the simple change of a few characters in verse 41 and some more in verse 42, the censured tradition gives us a different message: ‘Mary, Mary, you avoid and shirk too many things: But only one thing is needed. Martha is right; let’s clear the table together the three of us and then our conversation will attain the heights’. Philological research has clearly demonstrated the soundness of this textual tradition, based on international research projects. But it does not appear possible to dethrone the inherited text easily, as it is the favourite among philosophers and aesthetes; or to resolve the question of authenticity scientifically. This radical evil cuts across history and occupies a significant place, even in the existential Heideggerian analysis, where it receives a resounding name: original shirking (abweichende Abkehr). However, the efforts once dedicated to the lost book of Aristotle on laughter are now dedicated to the textual tradition of the parable of Martha and Mary. The book on laughter is the word of man, but the parable of Martha and Mary is the word of God. With their obsession with text, philologists use the same methods to analyse both forms of the word. If they ever had the humility to listen to its spirit, they would make sure that what is good and the just is not so because that is what God says, but that God says so because it is good or just. Where philologists do not see beyond a textual controversy, there is no possibility of philosophical or spiritual doubt. 5

Nietzschean Love and Pride

In this section, we are going to deal with logic, transvaluation, love, Jesus and Zarathustra, in that order. In nearly all cases, we have to recognise that Nietzsche’s thought is not free from some ambiguities, just like Christian morality, although this does not diminish its force and brilliance in any way. First, I will make some introductory comments on Nietzsche’s logic, to show that his páthos is firmly based on lógos, although at times it appears to dynamite it. Second, I will take up again the key idea of the transvaluation of all values and a question only mentioned briefly above: whether Nietzsche’s criticism of cruelty is in line with this transvaluation. Third, I will refer to his original discussion of love of one’s neighbour, love of the distant, love of friends, hatred of friends, love of enemies and the pride for enemies. Fourth, one has to qualify the consideration (which we have already noted) of Jesus as the

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culmination of Jewish hatred. Nietzsche also provides us with another, perhaps surprising, perspective on his figure. Finally, we will assess and weigh up the merits of Zarathustra as an addition to the cast of the most famous proud men and women, trying not to lose sight at any time of objectivity. With respect to Nietzsche’s logic, I would only like to bring two points to bear: an example of his exquisite use of the logical form modus tollendo tollens, or negation of the consequent, and another of his rather laxer use of the ad hominem argument. The first may serve to illustrate the appreciation that his páthos is based on a sound mastery of the lógos and the second the suspicion that his pathos, nevertheless, sometimes explodes his lógos, ‘I am no man, I am dynamite’ (Ecce Homo, 1). With respect to the first point, Nietzsche puts all his care into making sure that the logical form of his argument is clear, even stressing the logical connectors: the conditional conjunction if and the consecutive conjunction therefore. The premise of the argument is a hypothetical or conditional proposition, and its conclusion is the negation of the antecedent. The intermediate premise, the negation of the consequent, is elided for the purpose of expressivity, so that his idea can reach us with even greater force, if possible, ‘But let me reveal my heart to you entirely, my friends: if there were gods, how could I endure not to be a god! Therefore, there are no gods’ (Zarathustra, ii, ‘On the Blessed Isles’). Now, a simple analysis of this argument makes clear the following difficulty: the apodosis of the hypothetical proposition which is the premise of the argument is an exclamation, but logical reasoning requires it be given a propositional sense. In my opinion, this translation does not offer any difficulties: the exclamation, ‘how could I endure not to be a god’ operates in the argument with the sense ‘and I don’t endure not to be a god’. And as we have just seen, for the argument to conclude with the negation of the protasis of the first premise, the second premise must of necessity consist in the negation of its apodosis: I endure not being a god. However, as any philosophical reader will immediately recognise, this statement (that Nietzsche endures not to be a god) contradicts the letter and spirit of all his works. So the analysis of this argument, whose logical form he has explained with so much emphasis, leads us necessarily to the following disjunctive conclusion: either in the elided premise Nietzsche states that he endures not to be a god, which is absolutely unbelievable, in which case his argument has the form of a perfect modus tollendo tollens; or he states that he can’t endure not to be a god, which is perfectly in accordance with his lógos and páthos, but then he would be committing a beginner’s mistake in his argument, as he concludes with the negation of the antecedent of a hypothetical proposition after the statement of its consequent. In the first case, it is the content that is sacrificed, and in the second case, the form. In

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either case or both of them, as the disjunction is not exclusive, far from the promised refinement, the result is rather embarrassing. With respect to Nietzsche’s second logical example, it is in my opinion a case of the most surprising ad hominem argument in universal history. In fact, it is an ad hominem argument targeted no more or less than against God, although it is in the form of God made man. In my opinion, an ad hominem argument against God constitutes a unique case which is impossible to categorise, as would also be for the same reason an ad hominem argument against any creature that is not a man, such as an angel or brute. The ad hominem argument targeted against God consists of stating none other than that—​please pay attention here—​the ideas of Jesus of Nazareth are explained … by his age! Incredible as it may seem, Nietzsche attributes the ideas of Jesus to his youth. As everyone knows, it is a case of an ad hominem attribution because Nietzsche does not offer the reasons for which he holds that the arguments and statements of Jesus of Nazareth were false; he considers them to be such because of certain personal qualities of the person who held them, in this case the quality of age. It is difficult to imagine a more arbitrary form of dynamiting logic. But despite these logical deficiencies, we could make use of the principle of charity to try to find in this ad hominem argument, together with its logical disvalue, a certain moral value: other additional clues to Nietzsche’s heart. In fact, the philosopher displays that very charity which he detests so much towards Jesus himself, by a touching consideration. According to Nietzsche, Jesus died too young, but had a noble heart; and, if he had reached his own age, he would have retracted his ideas: ‘Believe me, my brothers! [The Hebrew Jesus] died too early; he himself would have recanted his teaching, had he reached my age! Noble enough was he to recant! But he was not yet mature’ (Zarathustra i, ‘On Free Death’). Certainly, I could be tempted, and perhaps to some extent legitimated, to use his own argument against Nietzsche, along the same lines. Nietzsche died too young. But he had a noble heart; and if he had reached my age, he would have retracted his teaching, without any doubt. I calculate that the difference in age between Jesus when he died and Nietzsche when he wrote those lines was similar to the difference between the age of Nietzsche when he wrote those lines and mine as I write this. This would give me an enormous boost to my argument, if I wanted to use it. But I don’t want to use an ad hominem argument against Nietzsche, and the principle of charity in his favour, as he does with Jesus, to argue that if he had not died so young, he would have retracted his ideas. What I aim to show is that, in contrast with what appears to be the case at first sight, and without appealing to what he would have done or not done, in the very same writings he has left us, there are already arguments and theories which allow

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us to contemplate his transvaluation from another angle and recognise in him another view of love and the Hebrew Jesus. So let’s move on to the issue of transvaluation. We have already seen the Nietzschean ambiguity in the face of pain and cruelty, which can be recognised without any difficulty in his most structured work, On the Genealogy of Morals. First, Nietzsche deploys in detail his fascination for the cruelty of the strong and his disdain for the pain of the weak. However, he can’t hide his pain in the face of the pain and cruelty which unfortunately appears in some decisive passages such as the following, ‘Man could never do without blood, torture, and sacrifices when he felt the need to create a memory for himself; the most dreadful sacrifices and pledges (sacrifices of the first-​born among them), the most repulsive mutilations (castration, for example), the cruellest rites of all the religious cults (and all religions are at the deepest level systems of cruelties)—​all this has its origin in the instinct that realised that pain is the most powerful aid to mnemonics’ (Genealogy ii, 3). In my opinion, a transvaluation of all the values done properly, worthy of a great philosopher such as Nietzsche, would have to include the judgement that cruelty is good, not bad. But quite the contrary, for Nietzsche himself, cruelty, sacrifices and torture (in short, provoking pain) are bad. But there is more. The bard of the birds of prey even says that the State, the legal system, matrimony and care of the sick and poor are no more or less than natural customs and institutions; that they arise from the vital instinct and have a value in themselves. What is bad is that the priests first devalue them and then appropriate them. These are his own words: ‘Because there is one thing you need to understand: the parasitism of the priests (or the “moral world order”) takes every natural custom, every natural institution (State, judicial order, marriage, care for the sick and poor), everything required by the instinct of life, in short everything intrinsically valuable, and renders it fundamentally worthless, of negative value: these things now require some extra sanction—​a power is needed to lend power to things, to negate what is natural about them and in doing so create value … The priest devalues nature, he desecrates it; this is the price of his existence’ (The Antichrist 26). The transvaluation of all values is not easy. Allow me to recall the admiration of the demons for Satan, when he undertook his trip to the Earthly Paradise alone to destroy the human beings. Even in Hell it is the brave who are admired, not cowards. And as we have just seen, Nietzsche himself displays a great páthos of proximity when considering a natural custom and attributing value in itself to care for the sick and the poor. Less wolves, Little Red Riding Hood. Jesus urged his disciples to go into the world as sheep among wolves. It is proverbial that wolves dress in sheep’s clothing. Nietzsche’s transvaluation

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appears to consist of the sheep disguising themselves as wolves … It is notable that at this point, he has not taken advantage of the situation to highlight his meekness by contrasting it to the cruelty of Jesus: ‘I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—​bring them here and slaughter them in my presence’ (Luke 19, 26–​27). But let’s not exaggerate. Nietzsche’s consideration of marriage and care for the sick as valuable in themselves is used for the criticism of religion. And there are so many passages (I have cited some at length above) which manifest his repugnance for the stench of the sick and lame and his desire for them to perish, that the image of a sheep in wolf’s clothing is clearly on the wrong track. What can’t be denied is that Nietzschean morality is no more lacking in ambiguities than Christian morality. Thus, Nietzsche accompanies the recognition of the value of institutions, which he considers natural, such as marriage or care for the sick, with a crystalline argument about the causes of their perversion. These valuable institutions, which are the work of nature, are perverted by the parasitism of the priests, who pretend that they only acquire value when they come from their intervention. I consider that the problem for Nietzsche is not so much values as religions in general and Christianity in particular. I don’t dare argue that Friedrich Nietzsche does not manage to transvalue some small value to a certain extent, at some time, but I do argue that the transvaluation of all values is a serious matter. His criticism of Christianity is based, precisely, on non-​ transvalued values, such as the evil of cruelty. ‘There is a distinctively Christian sense of cruelty’, he says, ‘towards yourself and others; hatred of those who think differently; the will to persecute’ (The Antichrist 21). Further on he says, ‘Christianity needed barbaric ideas and values to conquer barbarians, like the sacrifice of the firstborn, the drinking of blood in Communion, the contempt for spirit and culture, torture in all its forms, sensuous and non-​sensuous, the great pomp of the cult’ (The Antichrist 22). If we examine it carefully, even in his furious and repeated criticism of compassion, a positive value is seen to emerge. Compassion is not bad in itself. What is bad is compassion of Christians, compassion of those who suffer and compassion of those who preach. The compassion of the strong has a great value: ‘a man who is by nature a master—​when such a man has pity, well, this pity has value. But what good is the pity of those who suffer. Or those who, worse, preach pity!’ (Beyond Good and Evil ix, 293). This takes us to love. At first sight, it appears a more pleasant subject than cruelty, but we immediately have to recognise that the starting point is not,

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‘The weak and the failures should perish: first principle of our love of humanity. And they shall even be given every possible assistance. What is more harmful than any vice?—​Active pity for all failures and all the weak: Christianity’ (The Antichrist 2). And in verse: Wirbeln wir den Staub der Strassen | Allen Kranken in die Nasen. However, it must also be recognised that this type of statement is a little rhetorical. In fact, when dealing with the ambiguities of Christian morality, we have seen that Nietzsche strongly censures the harmony between virtue and the prize we find in certain passages of original Christianity. Nietzsche expresses his adverse reaction to a love which expects to be paid and notes with tenderness that ‘Whatever is done from love always occurs beyond good and evil’ (Beyond Good and Evil iv, 153). The bad thing for Nietzsche, as before, is not really love for one’s neighbour, love of others, but love of others for God. Nietzsche also carries out some interesting exercises in the transvaluation of love. Rather than love of one’s neighbour, Nietzsche appeals to love of the stranger. Rather than love of friends, he praises hate and vengeance against friends, ‘The person of knowledge must not only be able to love his enemies, but to hate his friends too’ (Zarathustra i, ‘On the Gift-​Giving Virtue’). Rather than Christian love of enemies, he extols a new love which culminates in pride. Perhaps we could reach some interesting conclusions, but we can’t stop to examine each of these exercises. I am going to limit myself to the last, because it falls fully within the scope of our research. According to Nietzsche, the love of the weak for enemies is false and actually reveals their impotence; while the love of the strong for their enemies is real and reveals the recognition of their value. Although the two sides are in conflict, the strong recognise and admire the value of strong enemies. But as a good psychologist, Nietzsche takes a step further, and illuminates an additional notion, of great relevance for our analysis: pride for enemies (Genealogy i, 10,14; Zarathustra i, iii). This curious notion can be accepted as a matter of course not only because it does not contradict the complexities of pride, but also because it allows us to make some of them explicit. I hope that phenomenological analysis can make perfectly clear when necessary that the feeling of pride presupposes a certain solidarity between its subject and object. We can only be proud of something that is in some way part of us in some sense. Heroes and aristocrats can be fully proud of their enemies because, although their nation, language and interests may be antagonistic, they are also lords and not the common people. This solidarity is the basis of their pride of caste, although it is between enemies. With respect to Jesus of Nazareth, the ambiguity of Nietzsche here reaches heartbreaking dimensions. Our philosopher projects on him and attributes him the greatest hatred and greatest love. On the one hand, he considers him

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the culmination of Jewish hatred, the greatest spiritual perversion in history. On the other, he not only attributes to him a noble heart, which would have led him to retract his doctrine if he had not died so young, but also a unique and absolutely unbounded love. Here are his words on Jesus of Nazareth, conceived perhaps also for himself. It is possible that underneath the holy fable and disguise of Jesus’ life there lies concealed one of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of knowledge about love: the martyrdom of the most innocent and desirous heart, never sated by any human love; demanding love, to be loved and nothing else, with hardness, with insanity, with terrible eruptions against those who denied him love; the story of a poor fellow, unsated and insatiable in love, who had to invent hell in order to send to it those who did not want to love him—​and who finally, having gained knowledge about human love, had to invent a god who is all love, all ability to love—​who has mercy on human love because it is so utterly wretched and unknowing. Anyone who feels that way, who knows this about love—​seeks death. But why pursue such painful matters? Assuming one does not have to. Beyond Good and Evil ix, 269

Finally, there is the figure of Zoroaster or Zarathustra, the atheist, the herald of the second innocence. The thought of Friedrich Nietzsche is filled with powerful images. He was aware that his essay Thus Spoke Zarathustra, published in 1883, was the biggest gift ever received by humanity (Ecce Homo, Preface). Nietzsche makes use of the legendary founder of the Persian religion. According to some sources, Zoroaster was the son of Ham and grandson of Noah. According to others, he was Ham himself, the only man who laughed when being born, which he could only do, according to Thomas Mann, with the help of the Devil. When narrating his story and teachings, Nietzsche flirted with a sporadic identification of him both with the Devil and with the superman. And from behind the three, an enormous moustache emerges at times, with the greatest of subtlety. As the creator, recreator or narrator of this great character notes, neither Shakespeare nor Goethe could for an instant breathe the immense passion and stature of Zarathustra, the atheist. Next to him, Dante was no more than a goody-​goody and the poets of the Vedas were insignificant priests who weren’t worthy of tying his shoelaces (Ecce Homo, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 6). Either you have a volcano inside you or you don’t. Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the men of profound sadness, to use his own words, one of the destroyed, proud and incurable hearts (Beyond Good and Evil ix, 279, 270). He

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said that he had gazed upon the abyss, but with pride, with the eyes of an eagle (Zarathustra iv, ‘On the Higher Man’). At times, he wrote with blood and at other times with hammer blows. One of the most portentous images he gifted us is the invocation of Zarathustra to the sun at dawn. At this point, the majestic sound of the trumpet which opens Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem begins to vibrate, and the sky shudders. Next, the orchestra joins in, above all the drums, and the major mode overlaps the minor. And the invocation to the king of the sky ends up resting on the king of chords and the instrument of kings, the Christian musical instrument par excellence. We have already seen the invocations of Lucifer, Adam and Prometheus to the sun, which sees all with its circular eye. These invocations are only within the scope of the greatest. Zarathustra was one of them, but although his creator may not like it, he was no more than a man. Zarathustra was no more than a man, born from a woman, like all except Adam and Enkidu, whose mother was the field, few of days but full of trouble. The pride of Nietzsche was not very original, as he directed himself basically to his masculinity and genius. For example, he repeatedly juxtaposes masculinity and pride (The Antichrist, 46) and undertakes ‘the tremendous task of the transvaluation, with a sovereign feeling of pride that was incomparable; certain at every moment of my immortality, engraving sign upon sign on bronze tablets with the sureness of a destiny’ (Ecce Homo, ‘Twilight of the Idols’, 3). In contrast, the greatness and pride of Zarathustra were new. The figure of Zarathustra is linked to two emblematic animals: the snake and the eagle. The snake symbolises reason and the eagle, pride. As this prophet is no more than a man, his appearance before the sun, with these two creatures, provides us with a dazzling image of human nature and its two dimensions. From all angles, with reason and without it, the old identification of human nature with reason is reviled. Human beings are not only reason, but reason and passion, head and heart. If we want to use an image to display this intuition, I consider that there is nothing as grandiose as Zarathustra’s snake and eagle. Once more, the break with Christianity is not total, but partial; and the philosopher Nietzsche is revealed as half Christian, as was the case with the composer Adrian Leverkühn in his final lament. Jesus exhorts his disciples to be ‘wise as serpents, and harmless as doves’ (Matt 10, 16). It is notable that both Zarathustra and Jesus invoke the serpent here, evoking clearly another epoch-​ making event we have already examined. And we would do well, perhaps, not to get involved with other cultural and spiritual worlds, as ours already provides us with sufficient perplexities. I wouldn’t know what to do with the great Aztec symbol, the eagle devouring the serpent, pride devouring reason, which appears in the Mexican flag.

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It should be said that, in his zeal, the great mediaeval poet attributes pride even to the poor doves: his accustomed pride (usato orgoglio: Purgatory 2, 126). In this case, the symbolism of the eagle and the symbolism of the dove appear to be more similar than they should, so it is convenient to rather keep in mind the image of the master on the simplicity and humility of doves. Nevertheless, although the eagle and dove symbolise qualities which initially appear opposite, there is no lack of reasons or contexts, as we have seen in the case of magnanimity and humility, to consider them complementary. This complementarity can be easily stated without more ado, but a statement without proof lacks value. To demonstrate it, we had to calm páthos and travel along the slow pathways of lógos. Finally, let me stick up again for Zarathustra, the herald of the second innocence. If anyone wanted to question the path and merits of the great prophet to enter into the ranks of the greatest proud men, he would not have to do more than examine his cv more slowly and consider his deepest desire. Zarathustra’s greatest desire is for the serpent and eagle, intelligence and pride, to accompany him at all times. And this desire goes hand in hand with another: the desire that, if at any time reason abandons him, pride should always continue to accompany his madness (Zarathustra, Preface, 10).

­c hapter 10

The Pride of the Masses 1

Philosophy and Poetry

In one way or another, the contemporary history of pride revolves around the idea of equality. After our Faustian and Zoroastrian excesses, we should cool down passion again with reason and recover some serenity. As readers will recall, during the most delicate interpretation of the angelic sin and human sin, we had to harness the English lyricism of John Milton to the Italian rationality and scholastic method of the philosopher Aquinas. Now once more, we have to domesticate the excesses of the north with the moderation of the south. After the Germanic passion, the Faustian and Zarathustrian excesses, we have resort to Spanish temperance and rationality. The relationship between pride and equality is somewhat complex and demands a more analytical treatment. Now, as we have also had the chance to see, we can’t treat the history of pride in a purely analytical way. Without abandoning the purely philosophical terrain, my proposal in this case is to try and combine the philosophy of the philosophers with the philosophy of the poets. But to make proper use of the former (the philosophy of the philosophers), we have to first see how far we can go with the second (the philosophy of the poets), which in turn adopts two forms, depending on whether it is a poet-​philosopher or a philosopher-​poet. The poet-​philosopher claimed, through the words of his teacher, that ‘there are men who go from poetics to philosophy; others go from philosophy to poetics. What is inevitable is to go from one to the other, in this and in everything else’ (Machado, Juan de Mairena, oc ii, 1998). The philosopher-​poet claimed that ‘philosophy is more the bedfellow of poetry than of science’ (Unamuno, Of the Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Peoples, Chap. 1). In my opinion, there are two key contributions by the poet-​philosopher to the history of pride, and a further two by the philosopher-​poet. The poet-​ philosopher provides us with substantial reflections on the dialectics and complementarity between pride and humility, and on the pride of equality; while the philosopher-​poet points with his soul bared to heaven and earth, directing his celestial pride or appetite to eternity and his terrestrial pride or appetite to work. Allow me to say a few words about each of these four proposals, before focusing on equality in the following sections of this chapter. On the eve of the Spanish Civil War, the poet-​philosopher gave an eloquent title to a treatise he was never able to write: La metafísica del orgullo (The

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_012

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Metaphysics of Pride) (1938). Without a doubt, this monograph would have constituted a landmark and essential reference point for our research, but all that remains is clues and sketches in scattered texts. I have tried to gather them together with care. I consider that the great poet’s first idea, which I have just mentioned—​the complementarity between pride and humility—​is in reality at the service of the second, the pride of equality. The poet’s attention is basically directed to what brings us together. We will have to look elsewhere for the complementary point of view: to realise what separates us. On a number of occasions, Antonio Machado uses the expressions ‘pride of humility’, ‘humility of pride’, or ‘modest pride’: ‘You have to respect modesty and pride; the pride of modesty and the modesty of pride’ (Juan de Mairena, oc ii, 2049). His vision is sincerely religious, ‘“Christ”, my teacher told me, “preached humility to the powerful. When he returns, he will preach pride to the humble. Wise men change their advice. Don’t be shocked”’ (p. 2073). And his vision is also healthily patriotic. His attribution of this complementarity to traditional Castilian wisdom, as passed on to him by an old shepherd, is particularly eloquent. According to the poet, the pride of equality is based on the greatness of what we are, of what we share and of what makes us equal. There is a brief Castilian saying—​I heard it in Soria for the first time—​ which goes: ‘No one is more than anyone’. When I recall the land of Soria, I sometimes forget Numantium, Rome’s nightmare, and El Cid Campeador, who crossed this land in his exile, and the glorious minstrel of the sublime epic poem, who may well have been born there; but I never forget the old shepherd from whose lips I heard this magnificent saying which, I believe, encapsulates the soul of Castile, its great pride and its great humility, its experience of centuries and its imperial sense of its poverty; this magnificent phrase that I am happy to translate in this way: however much a man is worth, he will never have a higher value than the value of being a man. Soria is an admirable school of humanism, democracy and dignity. Soria, oc ii, 1801

In his reflections on the pride of equality, the poet doesn’t offer us a theory on the basis of equality, which he accepts as a given, but on the basis of pride, which is equality. It is clear that in this research we are not looking for the basis of equality but the basis of pride. Equality is a sound basis for pride. This is clear in the case of equality of excellence and the dignity of human nature. But we will also find it, unfortunately, in the equality of mediocrity. Machado shows the first clearly and also attributes it to his complementary

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figure, the philosopher-​poet, whom we will now turn to, ‘Unamuno is a man proud of being one, who speaks to other men in an essentially human language’ (Unamuno, político, oc ii, 1771). Elsewhere, with respect to the spectacle of a man who fights alone against his social milieu, he insists that it makes him feel ‘the pride of belonging to the human race’ (‘Prólogo a Helénicas, de M. Hilario’, oc ii, 1548). But as well as highlighting the essential role of human equality and identity, Machado also refers us in a letter to Unamuno himself, to the will to be and create, ‘If we have no will that creates a purpose, what is our pride based on?’ (Letter 21-​3-​1915, oc ii, 1579). In the next chapter, we will travel from equality to identity. There we will see that both identity and difference constitute, each in its own way, other powerful foundations for pride. In fact, the philosopher-​poet Unamuno, proud of being a man, does not use the term pride; but does use its sense when he refers to the appetite for excellence and elevation. He recalls the negative will of Mephistopheles in Goethe, the spirit which always denies, ‘Everything which is born deserves to sink’. And he holds precisely the opposite, ‘We say that everything that is born deserves to be elevated, to be eternal, even though it does not achieve any of this’ (On the Tragic Sense of Life, Chap. 11). The volitive component of the appetite for excellence, which we have already come across and to which we will return, can’t be more obvious. With great regret, Unamuno is scandalised that we attribute to pride, the bad pride, let’s say, some form of haughtiness, a will for elevation and eternity: ‘Pride? Pride to want to be immortal? […] And they keep bombarding our ears with that chorus on pride! Reeking of pride! Pride of wanting to leave behind an indelible name?’ It is not pride, he says a little further on, but ‘terror in the face of nothingness’ (Chap. 3). The cordial and anti-​rational truth is for the great philosopher the immortality of the soul; or, which amounts the same thing, the human purpose of the Universe. And this cordial truth counts, he says, with a moral proof, which he formulates in the form of an imperative, ‘Act so that in your own opinion and in the opinion of others you deserve eternity, you are irreplaceable, so you don’t deserve to die’ (Chap. 11). The appetite for eternity thus reveals its earthbound reflection. Etsi per impossibile Deus non daretur, the incorruptible appetite for Heaven casts light on the tragic imperative of the Earth: that your death is an injustice. Spain’s second great philosopher, the mediaeval-​ souled philosopher-​poet, turns his terrestrial appetite, will and pride, to the same object as the second great poet of Greece: work. The labours of civil servant, university professor and rector were undoubtedly different to those of the rural poet. But his self-​affirmation and pride appear similar. Modern pride in work and industriousness (dumm-​stolze Arbeitsamkeit, as our dear bully calls it) turns the blustering or nostalgic evocations of old aristocratic phrases into

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pure entitledness. Pride in ‘the labours on land for cereals’ was expressed in an exceptional way by the poet-​philosopher. And in the end, I owe you nothing: you owe me what I have written. I go to my work, I pay with my own money the suit that covers me and the mansion I live in, the bread that feeds me and the bed in which I lie. antonio machado, ‘Self-​portrait’

The pride of the entitled is very stupid and does not deserve this noble name, but rather that of petulance or arrogance. Another of our poets expressed disdain for entitledness and the desire for industriousness, with different images, which are a little self-​willed, but very beautiful. There will always be haughty snow which clothes the mountain in ermine and humble water which works in the windmill’s weir. —​And there will also always be a sun —​both tyrannical and friendly—​ which barters the snow for tears and river water for clouds. león felipe, ‘Revolution’

But we have to return to the question of equality. The philosopher, the true philosopher, the great philosopher of Spain, who was not such a friend of mythologising, offers us essential assistance to ensure that the passion for equality does not prevent us from recognising the reasons for difference. 2

No ​One Is More Than Any One

The identification by José Ortega y Gasset of the social phenomenon which he called the revolt of the masses and the psychological dissection of its leader, the mass-​man, are of great relevance for research into contemporary pride and hubris. Ortega’s analysis allows us to identify continuities and ruptures between ancient and modern phenomena. Thus, for example, spiritual hubris or a refusal to be subject to the superior (non subdi), which has an original and precise religious sense which we have identified, reappears in a mundane form

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in what Ortega calls ‘the mortal phenomenon of spiritual insubordination of the masses against any eminent minority’ (Invertebrate Spain ii, 2. ‘Empire of the masses’). The aristocratism of Ortega evokes other ancient forms of aristocratism, but in turn assumes modern equality directly. Ortega’s approach will also be of use in looking at other forms of pride, which we will deal with in their contemporary manifestations, based on groups, differences, or what I will call, following him, mass pride. In this section and the next, we are going to deal with the following points. First, I will start with the appeal by Ortega to two amazing historical events—​ the awareness of dignity and rights at the end of the 18th Century and the generalisation of welfare at the end of the 19th—​and his criticism of what he considers its consequences. Second, I will deal with the key contrast between mass and nobility. Third, I will present the analysis by Ortega of Spanish pride and its relevance to what we are dealing with. Fourth, I will try to show the similarities and differences between the revolt of the masses against excellent minorities and the resentment of the weak against the strong. They are related phenomena, but not equivalent. Finally, I will try to prepare the shift to pride in difference and collective prides. Ortega’s proposals will allow us to see them in a special light. Ortega’s aristocratism presupposes and assumes the equality indicated to by the old shepherd cited by Machado: no one is more than anyone. As Ortega says, the recognition of the singularity and rights of individuals, which saw the light during the 18th Century, is the awareness of all individuals of their dignity and domain. We have seen how, immediately before this, it was Hume who stressed pride as an awareness of dignity. The diatribes of Ortega are not directed against this awareness, but against an additional movement, which he does present as an inevitable consequence: the affirmation of vulgarity and hatred of the best. He uses almost the same words as Machado to refer to this egalitarianism of mediocrity (which we will deal with shortly): ‘Everybody equal! No one is better than anyone!’. And the second positive social phenomenon to which Ortega attributes undesirable consequences is the universalisation of welfare. As he indicates emphatically in the form of a pronouncement, ‘The very perfection with which the 19th Century has provided an organisational structure to certain orders of life is the reason why the beneficiary masses do not consider it as organisation, but as nature’. This explains the two features of the psychology of the spoilt child inherent to the mass-​man. ‘The free expansion of his vital desires […] and the radical ingratitude to what has made possible the ease of his existence’ (The Revolt of the Masses i, 6. ‘The Dissection of Mass-​man Begins’).

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Now, the main consequence of the psychology of the mass-​man is, according to Ortega, that ‘feeling himself vulgar, he proclaims the right to vulgarity and refuses to recognise higher instances to him’ (Revolt ii, 14, ‘Who Rules in the World?’). Initially, the mass-​man is not blind, but recognises eminence and value. But when he recognises them outside himself, he does not direct himself to them, does not aspire to improvement, whether healthy or feeble, ordered or disordered, by comparison with others or with himself, but remains unmoving in his vulgarity. In contrast, continues Ortega with what is a beautiful argument, excellence or nobility means effort, ‘So what is noble is equivalent to hard-​working or excellent’. Man is superior when he recognises a rule which lies beyond him, to which he delivers himself and serves. True nobility means servitude—​noblesse oblige—​while the mass-​man lives without nobility—​sine nobilitate—​in snobbish aspiration. In the intellectual field, the man who is satisfied with the first idea he finds in his head is a mass-​man, while the man who makes an effort to test his ideas to try to achieve the best is noble. Ortegian aristocratism undoubtedly evokes the old myth of the metals of Platonic aristocratism. Ortega corrects an earlier attitude of praise for castes, a little abrupt, and affirms that true nobility is not inherited, but that the select or effortful souls are found in all social classes (Revolt i, 1, ‘The Coming of the Masses’). Yet, the identification established by Ortega between effort and excellence can’t be taken literally; it is easy to subject it to a reductio ad absurdum and it reveals above all his good heart. It is clear that it takes much less effort for the great (of whom he is one) to write, compose or paint their works than for us to assimilate them. In my opinion, the pride in participation to some extent in the life of the spirit cannot be more legitimate. But if excellence were principally rooted in effort, readers and spectators would be more excellent than creators, which is absurd. It therefore follows that excellence is not identified with effort. The greats probably throw themselves into things and do not waste time feeling or analysing their pride with respect to the Summa Theologica, the Well-​Tempered Clavier or Guernica. However much pride Nietzsche exuded before his Zarathustra and considered it the greatest gift humanity had ever received, it must be admitted that the Nietzschean obsession with pride is actually a little plebeian. However, although excellence is not simply identified with effort, I would like to advance here that systematic phenomenological analysis will show a robust connection between pride and effort which will then finally reveal a new form of nobility and excellence. Moreover, when applying the method of eidetic variations to pride, I will refer to Ortega’s acute analysis of the mass-​man. What interests us now is Ortega’s theory of pride, or Spanish pride. This theory also contains elements of great relevance to the matter at hand, but in my opinion it is slightly

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tarnished by the strange method of quantification, which Ortega only managed to escape in part. In fact, he clearly rejected the horizontal political quantification, but fully embraced a vertical psychological and axiological quantification which is fairly objectionable. First, he says, ‘being left-​wing is, like being right-​wing, one of the infinite ways that a man can choose to be an imbecile: both, in fact, are forms of moral hemiplegia’ (Revolt, ‘Preface for the French’, 4). It appears clear what his opinion would be about the famous ideological axis used by the new science of politics, in which the horizontal quantification of left and right goes into decimal figures. However, in his analysis of pride, Ortega strangely supposes that in social interactions the first move is to classify others extremely precisely, according to their value on a vertical scale. Ortega calls it ‘a feeling of the level’ and explains it thus, ‘There is no o​ ne in our social milieu who is not included in it, together with the logarithm of his hierarchical relationship to us. It seems that as soon as we come across our neighbour, the tacit intimate calculations begin, weighing up the value of the person in question, and deciding whether they are worth more, the same or less than us’. Despite the quantification, Ortega provides us with a very graphic and somewhat acute definition of pride, ‘An error by an excess in the appreciation of level’ (‘A Topography of Spanish Pride’, oc iv, 459–​466). Obviously, I can’t deal here with the problem of whether all ordering must admit quantification in one way or another. It is possible that any idea to the contrary is no more than pre-​scientific prejudice. Because I don’t want to be accused of never wanting to venture beyond religious intuitions and literary metaphors, I will incorporate into the analysis what are real scientific treatments, here and there in what remains of this chapter and expressly in the next. Before this, we will look at how axiological quantification can occur in two modes. First, we can refer to quantification of all goods, both material and immaterial. The quantification of immaterial goods has been disputed, even by some economists, who call them relational goods, like games, love or friendship, and hold that their raw material is time. The poets and philosophers have always called them spiritual goods and add that unlike the material, their dissemination leads to their increase (Dante, Purgatory 15, 61–​63). In addition, we can refer to the quantitative determination of the place of each class of goods and each specific good on the vertical axiological scale, which is what Ortega uses in his analysis of pride. Now, with quantification or without it, Ortega clearly notes the core place of valuation in determining the essence of pride and hubris. As we know, we have theories of emotions which consider value judgements to be a key ingredient of all of them, but our research is limited to pride as a particular emotion and

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a feature of character. After going over the sciences of pride and the phenomenological determination of its essence, we will be in a condition to present excellence or value as a formal object of pride, but without entering into a more general theory on human affectivity. In my opinion, this aim at generality must be based on a prior patient and rigorous analysis of certain peculiarities. In any event, the importance granted by Ortega to estimative or valuative judgement is such that he uses it as a proximate genus to the phenomenon of pride. With it he appears to leave to one side its logical nucleus of a sentimental or emotional phenomenon. But as we have seen in modern philosophers, the presence of the value judgement is unquestionable, so the subsumption of this emotion under it is not so strange. If I may carefully qualify an idea from Ortega, we may say that the object of our research is a feeling or emotion, but this feeling is inseparable from a valuation. The relevance of Ortega’s proposal for the phenomenology of pride, which we will construct by referring to the best analyses we can find, does not end there. Ortega also prepares a small typology based on genus he has just determined: the value judgement or estimation. In accordance with this typology, the object of this judgement is the same as its subject: oneself. And to determine its main species, he makes use of Nietzsche’s accurate distinction between reflexive valuation and spontaneous valuation. Ortega classifies Nietzsche’s intuition for estimative phenomena as ‘brilliant’ (‘A Topography’, 462). The judgements of the poets are a little different. ‘After Nietzsche’s blasphemies’, says Mairena, ‘nothing good can be expected from this old Europe’ (oc ii, 2108). And Unamuno, ‘There you have this thief of energy, as he crudely called Christ, when he wanted to combine nihilism with the fight for existence, and he talks to you about value […] Swelled up with himself, he wanted to be endless and dreamed of the eternal return’ (Tragic Sense, Chap. 3). Among our elders, the poets were more sensitive to the brutality of Nietzsche and the philosopher to his brilliance. In our current environment, only the latter exists. But what does not appear fair to silence is that the ‘brilliant’ Nietzschean distinction between reflective and spontaneous valuation, whether or not Nietzsche and Ortega like it, whether they cite it or not, is in reality a distinction taken from Paul, ‘All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads’ (Gal 6, 4–​5). Whatever the case, the reflective valuation essentially depends on the comparison with others and, according to Ortega, may be of two types: normal or abnormal; in other words, ordinata or inordinata, if I may clarify a Nietzschean distinction using Thomist terms. The second kind of valuation is vanity. The valuation which does not essentially depend on a comparison with others, but

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on the pure emotion of oneself, is spontaneous valuation. This form of conceiving one’s self-​valuation, without comparison, will invite us to try a more precise analysis, will reveal itself as tremendously enigmatic and will give clues for other things. In Nietzschean terms, the reflective valuation appears profoundly plebeian and the spontaneous valuation extremely noble. In any case, Ortega’s analysis is aligned with tradition (without acknowledging it) and culminates with two other correct distinctions: the spontaneous valuation of oneself may appear normal (ordinata) or abnormal (inordinata). The abnormal is hubris. And hubris may be founded on higher or inferior values. The latter is in fact Spanish hubris: abnormal estimation of oneself based on inferior values. That closes our discussion of Ortega. I will return to this narrow seam below, from the point of view of phenomenology. 3

Resentment and Mass-​Pride

The reappearance of Nietzsche, who just won’t leave us alone, invites us to deal briefly with the following: the comparison between the ressentiment of the weak against the strong and the revolt of the masses against the excellent minorities. The starting point in both cases is valuation. An individual or collective subject esteems or values something, someone or someone’s something. Let us recall, first, the phenomenon of the ressentiment of the weak, analysed in the previous chapter. After the valuation, the subject realises his incapacity to achieve the thing of value and the capacity of others to do so (ripe grapes, strength, valuation of oneself without comparison to others). In the face of his impotence to do so, the subject states that what has been valued in reality does not have value. But—​and this is the decisive point—​the subject does not manage to deceive himself and continues to value the value and to realise his own impotence and the strength of others. This mental dynamic provokes in him a moral intoxication, the ressentiment of the weak against the strong, to which one can attribute (or not) the invention of moral chimera such as equality and compassion. Let’s try a reconstruction as parallel as possible of the phenomenon of the revolt of the masses. An individual or collective subject esteems or values something, someone or someone’s something. After the valuation, the subject notes his incapacity to achieve the thing of value and the capacity of others to do so (ripe grapes, strength, valuation of oneself without comparison with others). In the face of his impotence to do so, unlike the man with ressentiment, the subject does not state or stop stating that what has been valued initially does not have value in reality. What he does is simply state the value of what

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is not valuable, or forget value and vindicate vulgarity, his ‘right to vulgarity’, as Ortega says. The mass-​man is psychologically more primitive than the man with ressentiment. The resentful man does not forget value, does not manage to deceive himself. The mass-​man does forget value, or does not forget it, but simply affirms himself, without worrying about his vulgarity, or just affirming it, or, through one more spiritual blow, decisive for us, he may even become proud of his vulgarity. The revolt of the masses is the affirmation of their right to vulgarity. The pride of the masses, which we can call mass pride, is to accompany this self-​affirmation with this peculiar emotion, no doubt worthy of a better cause. In a little article called ‘Don Juan and Ressentiment’, published in 1942, Ortega states that ressentiment becomes blind in the face of value and that is why it discredits the excellent (oc vi, 132–​7). In my opinion, this is not correct. As Nietzsche and Scheler showed absolutely clearly, ressentiment does not become blind in the face of value; the initial valuation remains fully current in the soul and is an essential element for explaining the self-​poisoning. In contrast, perhaps it can be said that the mass-​man is blind in the face of value. But in my opinion, this is not necessary. The mass-​man affirms and is proud of his vulgarity but can be more or less blind in the face of value. If he does not become blind in the face of value, the mass-​man will see his emotional salad enriched with the dressing of ressentiment. If he is blinded, he will live his mediocrity and his pride with a stupendous complacency. I would only like to point out another element of the revolt of the masses against excellent minorities. According to Ortega, this revolt is a form of the masses not accepting their destiny. In this, he says, it is like any other revolt we know, the revolt headed by Lucifer (or Luzbel, as he sometimes calls him), the archangel who wanted to be God. We know that the desire to want to be God is only apparently clear, and that we have to distinguish between equality by likeness (aequiparantia) and by similarity (similitudo). Ortega does not appear to have been interested in the thought of Aquinas on this matter, but he offers another consideration worthy of mention: the archangel Lucifer would also have not accepted his destiny if, instead of trying to be God, he had persisted in trying to be the lowest of the angels. And then he provides us unexpectedly with a rather brutal flourish, which brings us back face-​to-​face against equality, our starting point, ‘If Lucifer had been Russian, like Tolstoy, maybe he would have preferred this latter style of rebellion, which is no less against God than the other, the more famous one’ (Revolt i, 13, ‘The Greatest Danger, the State’). No one is more than anyone. Yes, and no. No, and yes. The poet Antonio Machado enjoys himself lyrically with the axiological equality of all the brothers and sisters who are members of the human family. Whoever considers this equality a little feeble forgets that it has come into existence with blood and

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sword, and assumes what is perhaps one of the features of the psychology of the spoilt child of the mass-​man: to assume as a given the legacy of our elders, as if it were a work of nature and not a conquest by humanity. For the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, equality of value is a starting point. He does not insist on it, he assumes it. But what interests him is the aristocratic edifice that is constructed on it, the law of gravity governing how societies operate. For Machado, the phrase ‘no o​ ne is more than anyone’, this adagio of Castile, the perfect expression of modesty and pride, represents the moral ideal of equality and democracy. ‘No o​ ne is more than anyone’, because, let’s remember, ‘however much a man is worth, he will never have a higher value than the value of being a man’. In contrast, for Ortega a very similar phrase, ‘no one is superior to anyone’ embodies the moral perversion of downward egalitarianism, negative democracy and aristophobia, the hatred of the best, who are simply servants of the ideal. Curiously both the poet and philosopher appeal to Leo Tolstoy himself to highlight their vision. In his beautiful Speech on Russian Literature, which he gave in 1922, Machado attributes to the Russian soul fraternity, the universals of emotion and the religious background of life. In his article on Spanish hubris, published in Goethe desde dentro in 1932, Ortega sees it in another way, ‘Tolstoy’s religion is only that. The best of man is the lowest; that is why, among the social classes, the most perfect, the “most evangelical”, is the muzhik. The only thing worth knowing is what the muzhik is capable of knowing’ (‘A Topography’, 465). We must keep in mind these two sides of equality when we deal with identity, difference and collective pride.

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Identity and Difference 1

Black Pride

Gustav Flaubert said once that unless he could be shown the form and substance of a sentence separately, he would not be capable of understanding the difference. Leading politicians have to give great speeches on special occasions and, as with Flaubert’s sentences, it is difficult to separate the profundity or superficiality of their ideas from the brilliance or awkwardness when it comes to proposing them. It may be said that expecting brilliant oratory from political leaders is an aesthetic prejudice, and that lucidity and determination do not have to be displayed in powerful and passionate discourses. But I cannot believe that a political, social or spiritual leader who does not have the gift of expression could possess the intellectual capacity, knowledge and vision to exercise this function. They always appear to me like bad students, who say they understand or know something, but don’t manage to express it. But I don’t want to refer to political oratory in general; rather, to the fascinating experience of black oratory. The oratorical power of the former black President of the United States, Barack Obama, is well-​known; he was following in the path of other great political orators. However, I’m not trying to recall the major speeches of other presidents here, but rather the impressive oratory of other negros. Among the many aspects offered us by the new media is the marvellous opportunity to listen to some voices from the past, such as the speeches of black Americans of the 1960s. Listening to them you get the impression that without them there would not have been a Barack Obama, nor the world as we have it today. Martin Luther King and Malcolm x were black pastors, one Christian and the other Muslim, who had as much mental as verbal energy. Dr. King appealed to non-​violence and the revolution of values, while Malcolm x demanded the right to vote unreservedly, under the threat of ‘the ballot or the bullet’. Both combined in masterly fashion categorical phrases with reflections on the issues of the time. When listening to them fifty-​odd years later, you not only get the impression of perceiving the passage of history, but also that their devoted audiences were fully aware of the importance of that moment. Black orators displayed a new intelligence and passion. And in the speeches of each of the two the real possibility was present that they could be killed at any time. Both were assassinated just before they reached the age of forty.

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_013

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On 3 April, 1968, the day before he was killed, Dr. King gave an incendiary speech in which he mentioned the key moments in history in which he would not have wanted to live, as none of them could be compared with the black revolution of his time. He imagined a dialogue with God, in which he offers him the opportunity to live in a number of glorious epochs: Egypt, Rome, the Renaissance, a visit to Mount Olympus. But he would not change his fight for civil rights for anything. And he crudely evokes the knife with which he was stabbed in his breast a few years before, which passed a millimetre from his aorta and did not kill him because he had the luck not to sneeze during those decisive hours. Malcolm x, for his part, welcomed both the friends and his enemies in the audience. His mentions of violence were preceded by some reflections on the economy of black communities, black nationalism, the role of religion in public life, the war and the black vote in the election of President John Kennedy. In the first chapter, we saw the black pride of Michael Dyson, above all from the point of view of education and identity. But black pride is also a paradigmatic form of the pride of difference and collective pride. On trying to determine some features of these forms of pride, I am referring above all to black pride, to exemplify the analysis by using a particular case, but we could tackle identity and difference in a thousand other ways. In the next section, I will allude more briefly to other spheres in which the pride of identity and difference are of great relevance in contemporary life, such as sexuality, gender and disability. In the third section, when speaking of collective or group pride, I will also deal with nationalism and patriotism. And finally, I will deal briefly with the positive sciences. To my way of thinking, judgements about identity and difference are never isolated; they always presuppose other judgements of identity and difference. This is not only because identities are always complex, and all individuals participate in various changing and sometimes contradictory identities, something that has been amply demonstrated from a social, anthropological and even philosophical point of view. What I would like to stress is that the attribution of any form of identity and difference (for individuals who have several) only really makes sense accompanied by others. Let’s look at the case of black pride. As well as the great orators and activists I have just cited, like Martin Luther King and Malcolm x, popular American culture of the last century provides us with many icons from other areas. Dyson’s book includes the following, among others: the Baptist reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, who competed for nomination as democratic candidate in the presidential elections of 1984 and 1988; the singer Aretha Franklin, whose death in 2018 shocked the whole world, who

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felt ‘deeper love inside and I call it pride’; the lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who taught how to demand the pride stolen by slavery; and the editor John H. Johnson, who promoted the cause from the cultural magazines Ebony and Jet (Dyson 2006: xiv–​xv). The book appeared in a series on deadly sins, but after a brief historical summary of pride in Christianity and philosophy, and apart from a reflection on nationalism, it dedicates nearly all its attention to black pride. Like Jackson, the author is a Baptist pastor, and pays particular attention to the role of popular music. Perhaps the two verses which most eloquently reflect black pride are I am Somebody and Say it Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud. The first is the title and a recurrent phrase used in a poem written in the mid-​20th Century by another Baptist pastor and activist—​William Holmes Borders—​which was extensively cited and recreated by Jackson and King. The second is the title and a repeated phrase of a funk song of the 1960s by James Brown. The latter became a de facto hymn of the Black Power movement, which together with the Black Panther group (originally Black Panther Party for Self-​Defence) was very active until the 1980s. However, the blackness of jazz is earlier than Black Power and the Black Panthers. It is sublime, but imperfect, given the presence in its Olympus (oh dear) of some great white musicians. The blackness of jazz has pride of place in the great Duke Ellington: Swing it Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud. The pride of being black was crucial to Ellington’s beliefs. His dream was to create a musical with an entirely black cast. In 1941, he achieved this with his show Jump for Joy. His pride in the finished product was obvious when he said: ‘I’ve taken “Uncle Tom” out of the theatre’. Ellington also went on to produce Black, Brown and Beige in 1943, a musical based on the history of negros (Smith 2001: 26). In his speech as President of the tenth Southern Christian Leadership Conference (sclc) given on 16 August, 1967, Dr. King made use of Borders’ verse to interweave equality and difference, ‘The negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation. And, with a spirit straining towards true self-​esteem, the Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-​abnegation and say to himself and to the world: “I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history. How painful and exploited that history has been” Yes, we must stand up and say, “I’m black and I’m beautiful,” and this self-​affirmation is the black man’s need, made compelling by the white man’s crimes against him’ (Dyson 2006: 59). The expression of identity and difference of race is simple: I’m black. As the affirmation of many identities, at times it encloses a pain and individual and

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collective suffering that cannot be put into words. Self-​affirmation of one’s own value is also simple. I’m beautiful. And, given that, the claim cannot be more basic: I’m somebody. I am a person. The pastor of men does not express more than the equality of human beings, the great modern axiological platitude, which our own Antonio Machado gives to the shepherd: ‘no ​one is more than anyone’. But we should not forget, like spoilt children, that the platitude of equality is very recent and has been the product of blood and fire. To give an example of the same medium, the mania for quantification arose in a truly sinister way in the ruling on the Scott vs Sanford case (1857), when the U.S. Supreme Court concluded through its judge Roger B. Taney, who wrote the majority opinion of the court, that blacks ‘were only three-​fifths human and had no rights a white man is bound to respect’ (Dyson 2006: 125). The pride of identity is based on shared dignity, while the pride of difference rests both on the underlying identity and on the affirmation of an additional identity, its value, wealth or simply specificity. There are hundreds of other forms of pride of identity and difference that are very similar. We have seen that jazz reflects and evokes the whole history and dimension of black pride in two vibrant lines: Swing it Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud. In our own context, the bullfighter’s pride and gypsy’s pride are embodied in verses charged with duende, the angelic, and strong unswerving character: In the Chinitas Café Paquiro said to his brother: ‘I’m braver than you, more bullfighter and more gypsy’.

f. garcía lorca, ‘In the Chinitas Café’

2

lgbtiq+​ Pride

In the demand for recognition of other identities and other differences, the same simplicity and the same pain often beats at the heart. The poet and activist Eli Clare combines the identity of different or queer gender and disability. And confronts them, simply, with the negation of human identity and equality or, as he says, dehumanisation (Clare 2009: 149). The language of Dr. King was not always inclusive, but here it appears fully adequate: I’m queer. I’m beautiful. I’m somebody. In his book Exile and Pride. Disability, Queerness and Liberation, Clare offers both lucid political analyses, in favour, for example, of integration between demands for recognition of identity and other social demands, as heart-​breaking testimonies. His book deals with exile by opposition to home.

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Home means ‘place, body, identity, community, family’ and ‘hay pastures, trees, rocks, beaches, abandoned lots, kitchen tables, and sunflowers out back that have held and sustained us’. It means, ‘how we have fled from and yearned toward home’: in the end, ‘deeply-​honest multi-​issue politics that will make home possible’ (Clare 2009; xxv). And it is a case of pride because: ‘Pride is not an inessential thing. Without pride, disabled people are much more likely to accept unquestioningly the daily material conditions of ableism: unemployment, poverty, segregated and substandard education, years spent locked up in nursing homes, violence perpetrated by caregivers, lack of access. Without pride, individual and collective resistance to oppression becomes nearly impossible. But disability pride is no easy thing to come by. Disability has been soaked in shame, dressed in silence, rooted in isolation’ (Clare 2009: 107). Clare is always asking and analysing with complete sense and honesty whether pride of difference is equivalent to exhibitionism or testimony. We are particularly interested in his response to the latter. Their questions and disbelief ask me to unwind the act of witness from the expression of pride. Both witness and pride strengthen identity, foster resistance, cultivate subversion. People who have lived in shame and isolation need all the pride we can muster, not to mire ourselves in a narrowly defined identity politics, but to sustain broad-​based rebellion. And likewise, we need a witness to all our histories, both collective and personal. Yet we also need to remember that witness and pride are not the same. Witness pairs grief and rage with remembrance. Pride pairs joy with a determination to be visible. Witness demands primary adherence to and respect for history. Pride uses history as one of its many tools. Sometimes witness and pride work in concert, other times not. We cannot afford to confuse, merge, blur the two. clare 2009: 115

The modern lgbtiq+​pride is a pride of identity and difference of sexual orientation and gender, but also includes, at least for Eli Clare or A. M. Morales in his prologue, a determined awareness of human equality (Clare 2009: xvi; 149). But the contemporary platitude of equality, presumed by the pride of difference, is not only very recent, but has a limited future given the imminent arrival of post-​human realities and corresponding post-​pride. In any event, the current lgbtiq+​is a pride of difference and resistance to oppression and exclusion. It is a pride or self-​affirmation of difference in ontological and axiological equality, from which it gets much of its energy, whether or not it includes an additional feeling of sexual superiority. If lgbtiq+​pride includes

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this feeling it will also involve pride, appetite or a feeling of excellence, like the original prides. I don’t know what the dominant form in contemporary lgbtiq+​pride is: a pride of equality and sexual difference with sexual superiority or without it. Both forms appear compatible with queer serenity: ‘You don’t have pronouns yet for us’ (Clare 2009: 149). Whatever the case, there is no reason why pride of difference should have to presuppose a basic identity and equality. All difference presupposes a certain equality, but it could be a grosso modo, rough and ready equality. So, it appears clear that the gay pride of some Greek philosophers was in fact a pride in sexual difference and superiority, regardless of the essential equality and inequality of individuals, which is an unpleasant issue that I have referred to in Chapter 3, and to which we do not have to return now. But it is not easy to know whether this feeling of sexual excellence and superiority came to them as gays, as philosophers, or simply as Greeks, in other words as proud, to use the wise equivalence established by Dante, to which I referred on the first page of Chapter 2. The current lgbtiq+​marches, the contemporary social phenomenon classified simply as ‘pride’, contemporary pride par excellence, are an impressive festival of difference. As with all phenomena of this kind, collective demonstration includes very diverse personal motivations and feelings. One or other element can be more important in each individual: identity, difference, superiority or liberation. But the individual feeling may recede and allow pride of place perhaps to the feeling of belonging to a group. The following section deals with this. In any case, I want to make it clear that no one can be more lgbtiqxyz proud than me, just as no one can be more Thomist proud than me. Research into pride requires both things. What I wouldn’t do is make use of Thomas Aquinas to consider sexual difference, or queer theory to try to understand the sins of Lucifer and Eve, although some people do the reverse. And I should point out something else. As we know, the angel’s pride is essentially spiritual, insubordination to a superior. Everyone would have to admit that the angel is, moreover, the most original and eminent paradigm of intersexual pride. In his great theory of justice, John Rawls includes among the primary social goods rights, freedoms, income, wealth and the social basis of self-​respect. It may be that, as some authors claim, Rawls does not always distinguish self-​ respect, founded on equality, from self-​esteem, founded on the relationship between expectations and achievements. However, the social theoreticians interested in difference use this Rawlsian framework to show the similarities, differences and, above all, progression from self-​respect to self-​esteem and pride. In this way, they show the important role of this common and protean

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emotion in the fight against social injustice (Dyson 2006: 74, Diller 2001: ‘Pride and Self-​Respect in Unjust Social Orders’). 3

Collective Pride

Collective feelings or emotions were a subject of special interest at the end of the 19th Century and in the early 20th Century. The sociologist Émile Durkheim coined the expressive term collective effervescence and demonstrated its importance for group solidarity and cohesion in The Elemental Forms of Religious Life (1912). The study of collective feelings has recently gained great importance in psychology and social science, with particular attention being paid to Durkheim’s classic analyses. In the second half of the 20th Century, the collective political feelings which were the subject of most studies were blame and shame, not only as a result of the German Nazi past, but also recalling other massacres or civil confrontations, or the continuance of entrenched problems in other parts of the world. These emotions play a key political role for memory, reconciliation and even the resolution of some conflicts. In our present case, collective pride is a good example of this recent attention. Many interesting problems arise when studying it about the identities of groups, multiple identities and even shared intentionality. In examining collective pride, relevant distinctions are introduced, some taken from the study of collective emotions in general and others specific to the study of pride; one of them strictly conceptual in nature and others with empirical fundamentals or implications. I am only going to note a few of them, with the aim of giving an idea of the questions that appear when this new dimension of pride is studied carefully. With respect to collective emotions in general, the first question is how to conceive of group emotions without reifying them or attributing collective minds to them. Some authors argue, for example, that an individual may share the emotions of others, participate in the emotions experienced by the members of a group, in I-​mode or we-​mode, depending on the nature and reasons for their commitment. If an individual begins to participate in the emotion, or perhaps even more importantly, stops doing so for personal reasons, then he is in I-​mode; while if the reasons for sharing these emotions are rather inherent to the group, then he does so in we-​mode. For this, the notions of group reasons and group ethos are introduced (Salmela 2014: 22–​27). By way of example, and as a historian of pride, I would like to believe that, given its mass character, at the amazing lgbtiq+​pride events around the world all the variants and shades of classic prides are represented. I would love to believe that thousands

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or hundreds of thousands of Achilles, Lucifers, Eves and Zarathustras are cooperating shoulder to shoulder. To do so, the I-​mode would have to prevail: the reasons for joining or distancing oneself from the common cause. But it is difficult to know whether in this context, participation in the I-​mode predominates, or rather a certain we-​mode, probably more unspecific and less sensitive to the historical forms we have analysed. Another important distinction for the study of collective emotions is between aggregative, network and cultural theories, according to the form of conceiving them based on individual emotions (Sullivan 2014a: 270–​275, 2014b: 7–​9). With respect to collective pride, I will refer to three questions: the distinction between rationally appropriate and inappropriate collective pride; the possibility of transferring the distinction proposed for the individual sphere, between authentic and excessive pride, to the collective sphere; and its relevance in different fields such as nationalism, sport and the professions. Finally, I will refer to the presence of collective pride in various areas of contemporary social and political life. The collective emotional effervescence of groups may strengthen cohesion and solidarity between its members in a healthy way, facilitating social traffic and support networks; in a biased way, aligning individuals to follow a dictator; or in a pathological and aggressive way, towards other social or political groups or other nationalities. The distinction between the appropriate and inappropriate character of these emotions aims to demonstrate these different valuations of the emotions, as healthy or damaging for the group in which they occur or for others. Even recognising that there is an infinite number of issues on which it is not important whether the groups are informed or not, the idea is that collective emotions are rationally appropriate if the group does not put to one side knowledge and evidence which would make them radically different and which would prevent the biased and aggressive derivations. These emotions are inappropriate in the opposite case (Salmela 2014). The distinction already mentioned between proper or authentic pride and hubristic pride (Tracy and Robins 2007) is in line with the traditional duality between pride and arrogance, which we have found in many forms. Although it has received criticisms and qualifications, this distinction is broadly used in psychology and even in education. By analogy, it is intuitive to talk of reasonable and healthy collective pride, and excessive and aggressive collective pride, which is called collective hubris. What is questioned is whether the distinction made by Tracy and Robins can be directly transferred from the individual to the collective sphere. Authentic individual pride is considered based fundamentally on achievements and effort, while hubristic individual pride is based on personal qualities, possessions or circumstances in which the subject does

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not really intervene. The objection to the parallelism between the individual and collective case is that in the collective sphere, it is not only such qualities can easily foster arrogance and hubris, but also achievements and effort (Sullivan 2014a: 275). With this we have reached different areas in which collective pride takes on an undoubted importance. First, studies on nations and nationalism deal to a certain extent with this feeling. The conventional distinction between patriotism and nationalism reflects the point I have just made between collective pride and collective hubris, as can be seen in a work which is a reference for this question (De Figueiredo and Elkins 2003). During the Cold War, the theologian and commentator on politics Rheinhold Niebuhr noted the dangers of pride for the U.S. as a nation in its dealings with others, warning like the Old Testament prophets of the fall of Babylon, a recurring subject in the history of Israel (Dyson 2006: 93). In the Spanish case, we can trace the shift from the national pride of national-​Catholicism to democratic patriotism, which has not happened without some difficulties (Muñoz 2009). One of our political analysts notes very lucidly the link between patriotism, pride and vengeance: Patriotism is impersonal. But it is not simply an adherence to the rule of law, as argued by self-​righteous intellectuals. Our progressives and liberals understand the motherland as a pact between free citizens enshrined in the Constitution. The political community is artificial; emotions are not included. That is a mistake. The members of a healthy nation interiorise the actions of other members. They feel proud of the businesspeople who create jobs, but at the same time, they are ashamed of their bad practices. In Spain, this is impossible. The tribalists love (or hate) businesspeople unconditionally. And intellectuals take refuge in the law, rejecting the emotions of pride and shame which in other countries explain why their politicians or senior managers resign when they plagiarise a thesis, or commit acts which, even though within the law, are reprehensible. v. lapuente, ‘Paper homeland’, El País, 18-​10-​2016

In the case of sporting successes and failures, there are also excessive and even criminal collective reactions, but much more common is the civilised channelling of pride. Some people argue that participation in these mass phenomena, particularly in the huge social rite of football, may have great formative and structuring effects on the personality and identity of individuals. In any case, the World Cup of 2006 in Germany and the victory of the local team led to a generalised manifestation of patriotism and collective pride, accompanied by

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national symbolism, which had been practically absent since the Second World War, and which had cathartic and liberating effects with respect to the feeling of collective blame (Scheve and Salmela 2014: xiii, Sullivan 2009, Sullivan 2014c). Holding the Football World Cup in 2010 in South Africa also led to a renewal of the patriotic pride generated by the victory of the local team in the Rugby World Cup of 1995, after the end of the prohibition on participation in earlier events. These sporting events had an undoubtedly liberating effect with respect to the memory of the apartheid regime. What is really strange is that nearly all scientific analyses on South African collective pride omit one small detail: which national football team had a very well-​deserved victory on that happy day of 11 July, 2010 (Hook 2014, Moller 2014)? There is no lack of academic works which point to the role of pride in organisations and professions. By way of example, a study on nursing in primary healthcare in the United Kingdom empirically shows the importance of this feeling for the quality of work and the continuity of professionals. Professional nursing pride depends on three factors: work well done, recognition and the possibilities of developing a community of practice (Sneltvedt and Bondas 2016: ‘Proud to be a Nurse?’). The pride of civil servants in the value of their work also knows no frontiers. This is demonstrated both in academic works such as Borst and Lako 2017, which studied pride among Dutch civil servants, and in the posters placed around some of the public service windows in Spanish public institutions. Finally, I would like to make some observations on the truly significant presence of collective pride in current social and political life in Spain. This one time, allow me to accompany the scientific analysis and observation of reality with more anecdotal elements. I suppose that when one is absorbed in the study of a subject, one tends to find it everywhere and give it more importance than it has. First of all, I hold as an evident fact that pride is the basic feeling, emotion or political passion which arises on election nights, at least in my country, among both election winners and losers. Nothing like pride can convert political transversality into reality. Obviously, the winners brim over with pride. I suppose that the images can be found somewhere of the candidate who would become mayor of the city of Barcelona shouting her head off into the microphone after the municipal elections of 2015: ‘Orgull! orgull! orgull!’ (Pride! pride! pride!). In the same autonomous region, the party which won the regional elections in 2017 gave free rein to their elation by jumping for joy to the sound of a similar war cry: ‘¡Yo soy orguñol, orguñol, orguñol!’. During the congress of the Spanish conservative party held to renew its leadership (2018), the speeches of the outgoing and incoming party presidents made excessive use of party and national pride without any scruples. With all due

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respect, I think that politicians rely on this venerable feeling in a rather crude way, without showing any consideration either for its complexity or history. Meanwhile, the losers of the elections do not appear to be very proud of the defeat. Rather, in their public appearances, the leaders of these parties call first on pride in the work done by the rank and file and agents during the campaign and on election day. This unequivocal call on collective pride in defeat is their way of reaffirming what they are and believe. Everyone likes to win, but serene pride in defeat responds to the feeling, will and affirmation of the value of own ideas and shared enterprise. In her last letter to Spanish pensioners, in which they were told in a resigned tone that pensions could not rise by more than 0.25% in 2018, the then Minister for Labour also called on pride in defeat: we are all very proud of the Spanish pension system. And in his tv interviews, our most brilliant politician and political commentator stressed correctly, with respect to the former illustrious U.S. President Donald Trump, the presence of emotions in politics and the need to confront them not only with reasons, but also with other emotions; to grant a special place—​why not?—​to pride, hubris and humility. Many more examples could be given. The feeling and affirmation of what is one’s own as valuable occurs in many other ways, beyond political or sporting contests, as a foundation of individual and collective ethos, work and will. It’s a small world, at least for the passion of pride, which knows no borders. I will conclude this point with a distant and anecdotal example, but one that is revealing, nonetheless. In a recent issue of a Sydney University magazine, I read the speech of its magnificent chancellor on the day of the celebration of the feast day of Saint Apolonia, the patron saint of dentists, which falls on 9 February. This speech is full of emotive and repeated calls to the noble, authentic and collective ‘dentist’s pride’. There does not appear to be any temptation of collective hubris in this emotion, but I would like to point to something else. Given that this chancellor belongs to a different academic area, her call to odontological pride may be understood in at least three different ways. First, this emphatic call may be her way of pointing to the pride of the collective to which it is addressed—​Australian odontologists—​in celebrating their patron saint’s day, without really participating in this collective feeling. Second, perhaps the chancellor was putting herself, more or less voluntarily, in the skin of the odontologists and was opening herself up to their feelings. In this case, it would also be the noble phenomenon of empathy, which undoubtedly deserves another sustained investigation. Third, the chancellor perhaps felt proud herself of the odontologists, their professionalism and their value to the university. In this third case, it would be a different emotional form, which is known technically in the theory of emotions as hetero-​induced self-​conscious

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emotions (Salice and Montes 2016), in other words, emotions about oneself provoked by another. Pride and shame are paradigmatic cases of these emotions, when we are proud or ashamed of another or what another has done. The intelligence of these forms, and in particular of their intentional objects, is delicate. We will deal with them in the next chapter, on the phenomenology of pride, with respect to the eidetic variations on its material object. But before that, we will try to get an idea about the wealth of truly scientific approaches to our object of study. 4

Science and Pride

A number of specific sciences offer a distinctive and enriching vision of emotions. As we have just seen, in recent decades collective pride has acquired some relevance in studies on collective feelings or emotions. Similarly, the scientific study of feelings has a long tradition, and in recent years, the phenomenon of pride has received greater attention than before. In this section, I am going to refer very briefly to biology and anthropology, and in a little more detail, but also briefly, to psychology and education. A classic starting point for the examination of the bodily expression of emotions is the book by Charles Darwin The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). Darwin argues that there are basic emotions that are expressed in a similar way in different cultures and even in some higher animals. The similarity of expression of emotions is an indication of the similarity of emotions themselves and their biology, which in turn constitutes an indication of biological relations, common origin and evolution of species. Subsequently, the biological approach to emotions, the defence of basic emotions and their remission to universal expressions and gestures have been in a minority; for a long time, it was cultural and contextual approaches of different kinds that predominated. Nevertheless, the recognition of basic emotions and universal expressions was brought to the fore again in 1967 with the works of Paul Ekman (Tracy 2016, Chap. 1; Konstan 2006: 11–​19). In the case we are dealing with, Jessica Tracy herself dedicated her doctoral thesis to supporting the universal expressions of pride (Is there a Universally Recognized Pride Expression? 2006). Tracy and her team have reaffirmed this idea in subsequent transcultural research carried out in America, Italy and Burkina Faso. From an anthropological point of view, there are interesting studies on the sense of pride across different cultures (van Osch, Breugelmans, Zeelenberg and Fontaine, 2013) and the importance of pride of the body and pride of race in the affirmation of

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identity and the fight against exclusion, such as in the case of Canadian aboriginal women (McHugh, Coppola and Sabiston, 2014). In the section offering an overview of the question in Chapter 1, I have referred to the book that includes the most important results of the psychological research on pride carried out at Jessica Tracy’s laboratory over the previous ten or fifteen years. After the author’s doctoral thesis, the most relevant programmatic article for this perspective is perhaps the one she published together with her mentor, Richard Robins, entitled ‘The Nature of Pride’ (2007). This article is part of the psychological research on self-​conscious emotions and distinguishes various lines and proposals for work which allow the specificity and main contributions of psychology to be appreciated. First, these authors review a recent set of studies which explore the structure of pride and provide nothing short of the first systematic empirical evidence of the traditional distinction between two fundamental forms of pride. Second, they briefly review the research on the development of pride (see also Lagattuta and Thompson in the same volume, Chap. 6). Third, they describe a recent line of research which tests whether pride has a recognisable non-​ verbal expression. Fourth, they discuss to what point pride and its expression can be generalised across cultures (see in the same volume, Goetz and Keltner, Chapter 9; Fessler, Chapter 10; Edelstein and Shaver, Chapter 11). Fifth, they argue for a functional or evolutionary perspective of pride. Finally, they point to a number of directions for future research. Their general declared objectives are to lay the foundations for continuous programmatic research on pride and to convince readers of the reason for the ubiquity of pride in social life, as an essential part of what makes us humans. As we know, Tracy and Robins express their distinction between two basic forms of pride through the terms ‘authentic pride’ and ‘hubristic pride’. These authors arrive at this distinction through empirical procedures such as interviews, photos and laboratory experiments. In their opinion, empirical psychology has in this way given a charter of a scientific nature to the two traditional forms of pride, which had been looked at in a confused way by history, theology and philosophy. However, they do not offer any clues about what the traditional forms to which they refer are, which as we know, present some variations that are far from insignificant. Without going into more detail, the psychological distinction by Tracy and Robins appears to have a more direct relationship with the distinction in ordinary language between pride and hubris or arrogance, with which we began, than with historical modulations. The distinction rests on a basic factor, the cause of success, as attributed to effort or natural qualities. And given that an empirical result is proposed, it is questioned by research of the same kind. The prestigious journal Emotion (2014) has reflected

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a recent controversy. Through a variety of experiments, Holbrook, Piazza and Fessler (2014) raise doubts about the quantitative scales to which the distinction made by Tracy and Robins has given rise: aps (authentic pride scale) and hps (hubristic pride scale). According to their criticism, the hps ‘does not measure feelings of pride at all, but rather measures acknowledgment that one has displayed pride in an excessive manner’. In their opinion, this result does not require us to completely reject the distinction between two forms of pride, but rather to reformulate it more precisely. The reply by Tracy and Robins and the counter-​reply by Holbrook, Piazza and Fessler are also given. The controversy will undoubtedly continue to occupy a notable place in leading professional journals. The psychology of pride has also developed in other interesting lines of research, more or less dependent on the school of Tracy. I will only give a brief summary. As can be suspected, authentic pride is of a great assistance for success (Tracy, Cheng, Robins and Trzesniewski, 2009). The two forms of pride have a certain relation to two great psychological phenomena and facilitate the knowledge of their genesis and nature: self-​esteem and narcissism (Weidman, Tracy and Elliot, 2016). Another author proposes a different scale to measure success directly—​the Achievement Pride Scale—​in which a notable place is given to a distinction which will take on a leading role when we devise the phenomenology of pride: the contrast between comparison with oneself and with others (Buechner, Pekrun and Lichtenfeld, 2016). Finally, a crucial experiment locates in the fluctuations of the frequency of brain waves in a state of rest the prediction of authentic pride and hubristic pride: ‘The results revealed that individual differences in authentic pride were associated with the fALFF in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (stg), which has been implicated in social processing. In contrast, individual differences in hubristic pride were associated with the fALFF in the left orbitofrontal cortex (ofc) and posterior cingulate cortex (pcc), which have been implicated in self-​referential and reward processing’ (Kong, He, Liu, Chen, Wang and Zhao, 2017). I don’t know whether brain scanners could have captured, say, the psychology of the angel or the immoderation of Doctor Faustus, which kept us quite entertained at the time. But it is undoubtable that having these methods of psychology and empirical neurology would have been of great use in the examination of historical pride. Moreover, the educational approaches to pride are also rich and scientific. I find them more endearing than the psychological ones. I will limit myself to two samples: the call to pride in the education of children with Down’s Syndrome and the simultaneous emergence of self-​awareness and self-​feeling of babies. For the former, I use Hughes and Kasari (2000) and for the latter Vasudevi Reddy (2017).

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Hughes and Kasari studied the role of pride in children in carrying out certain tasks and their success with them, and the response of their caregivers to this feeling. For this, they compared the behaviour of two groups of twenty children, one with Down’s Syndrome and the others a little younger without it, with respect to the positive emotions, social orientation and manifestations of satisfaction and pride when concluding their tasks. According to their presentation, the caregivers did not help or facilitate the tasks of the children with Down’s Syndrome more, but they did provide greater frequency of praise than in the case of the other children. Against their expectations, the researchers concluded that the former manifested the same or even more intensity than the latter in all aspects observed in these feelings: positivity, attention to the environment and self-​assertion. Children with Down’s Syndrome look impatiently around them, yearn for an expression of recognition and give as a gift their radiant and luminous smiles, before which all excess pride is silenced and pales: I did it! I’ve managed to do it! Hughes and Kasari also express with precision and delicacy the implications of these studies both for children with Down’s Syndrome and in a more general educational sense. For all children, it is important to know the processes by which they internalise feelings, in this case pride, the use of their own standards and a certain growing independence from the environment. In the case of children with Down’s Syndrome or other difficulties, the situation is particularly delicate given the general climate of inclusive education in detriment to special education and the limited specialist help available on a daily basis. These authors also stress the importance of feeling in itself for the development of the identity of all children and refer to the specialist literature in which this crucial issue is studied from the point of view of the beautiful science of pedagogy. It is the issue pointed out by Reddy. As Reddy notes, it is not a conceptualisation of self which is distinguished first and then followed by self-​conscious affectivity; rather, the processes are co-​originary from an ontogenetic point of view. Between one and two years of life, the emergence of consciousness and the feeling of oneself become intertwined. Conscience and feeling of identity go hand in hand. Self-​consciousness is the consciousness of being and the feeling of oneself is the feeling of being, which is accompanied by the value of being and the pride of being. Ontological awareness is accompanied by ontological pride. All these pedagogical touches (the search for recognition, the internalisation of pride, the awareness of oneself, self-​ affirmation), which appeared in different forms in the history and myths of pride, also reappear when carrying out its phenomenology.

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The Phenomenology of Pride 1

The Essence of Pride

In Chapter 1, the analysis of ordinary language offered the following formulas for pride and hubris: a feeling of one’s own value and an attitude of superiority and scorn. In Chapter 5, we saw the most relevant mediaeval proposal for the unique term hubris: a disorderly appetite for one’s own excellence. In Chapter 8, we went over the modern characterisations of pride (Descartes, Spinoza and Hume), such as opinion, contentment, feeling and awareness of one’s value. In Chapter 10, Ortega’s formula for Spanish pride was an abnormal self-​evaluation based on inferior values. In this chapter, I will describe the phenomenon of pride based on all these proposals through one main formula, listing its distinct modalities and aspects by historical and conceptual variations of its different components. In my opinion, the most basic formulation offered by ordinary language, which we have confirmed and qualified with reference to other languages, is perfectly valid as the core of the main conceptual formula for capturing the essence of pride: feeling or emotion of one’s own value or excellence. Although from the start we recognised in it three explicit elements (feeling, own, value), we consider that this initial formula includes two additional elements: one implicit, the subject of the experience; and the other referring to the original duality, the two modalities of pride. Thus, my proposal is to gather together and address the different formulations and variations based on a formula composed of five elements: I (subject) feel (relation) my own (material object) excellence (formal object) in orderly or disorderly fashion (mode). Based on this logical or essential nucleus, the conceptual variations in each of the components should allow us to realise, to a certain extent, how rich the phenomenon is. This is what the famous phenomenological analysis of essence and eidetic variations consists of. In principle, this analysis deploys possibilities in logical space and takes place entirely in the world of ideas, but it is worth adding two considerations. First, the eidetic variations are enriched by historical varieties. As we can see, it is a good idea to have looked at a little history first. Second, if this analysis does not describe all the sides and the whole complexity of the phenomenon, this does not mean that it lacks value. The impossibility of ordering and mathematising everything does not imply

© Ricardo Parellada, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004683273_014

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that there are no logical nuclei and similarities, and only lies and metaphors. Differences and lies presuppose identities and truths. 2

Variations of the Proximate Kind: Emotion

The very characterisations or formulations of pride which I have just recalled already explicitly include variations in their proximate kind. The most natural expressions are presented as a feeling or emotion (feel pride or feeling proud) and this is what the definitions of Spinoza (laetitia) and Hume (sentiment) do. But also present are other mental possibilities: appetite (Saint Thomas Aquinas), opinion (Descartes) and esteem (Ortega). Thus, these formulas already provide us with practically the whole spectrum of what have traditionally been considered the fundamental classes of mental phenomena, regardless of the variations in their hierarchy or subsumption: cognitive, conative and emotional. In addition to this, there is a special judgemental modality, valuation or value judgement, whose most basic form ranges in classical phenomenology between the first and third category. Regardless of the great question on whether estimation or valuation amounts to knowing or feeling, according to our small sample, the emotion of pride quite naturally admits certain variations towards desire, will, knowledge and esteem. Let’s begin by the most venerable historical variation: appetite for excellence. As we have seen above, the most profound mediaeval psychology organises mental life around two fundamental capacities—​ thought and inclination—​each of which admits a division into rational and sensitive. In this mental cartography, there is no basic categorical distinction between conative life and emotional life; the latter is conceived as modifications of the appetite, under the name of passions of the soul. This first conceptual variation is therefore not as radical as if it were deployed in a map that distinguishes both spheres at a root level. And it cannot be simply said that the lack of distinction is old and the current distinction is modern, given that this problem has been reproduced in the most classic phenomenology. The grandfather of phenomenology—​Franz Brentano—​incorporated both types of phenomena into the same category of phenomena of interest and held firmly that the distinction between the two is gradual. In contrast, great phenomenologists like Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler have argued for a basic distinction between desire and emotion. Whatever the case, in the mediaeval context, pride as an appetite invites the following considerations. Although it has precedents, the expression appetite for excellence was established by Thomas Aquinas, who used it repeatedly.

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However, Aquinas himself also used for it the term which denotes the most noble and beautiful emotion: amor propriae excellentiae (De malo, q. 8, a. 2, ad 3) or, simply, amor proprius (i–​i i, q. 84, a. 2, ad 3). This expression is first contrasted with the actual meaning of appetite as desire and will. In the case of conative phenomena, pride is not limited to verification, but appears to include the determination of excellence. In addition, in mediaeval language, the appetite for excellence has a negative association and is always accompanied by the mode of disorder. Nevertheless, it is worth recalling the analysis in Chapter 8.1, which allowed us to conclude that despite this negative association, mediaeval hubris is a form of pride, which points to excellence, even if extremely, not a form of ordinary hubris or arrogance, which only point to oneself. Moreover, as we know, disorderly appetite for one’s excellence offers two original varieties, depending on whether it is directed at God or knowledge. The spiritual hubris of the angel is insubordination to the superior, while the intellectual hubris of human beings is unfettered curiosity. The conceptual gap of orderly appetite for excellence is occupied by magnanimity. Outside the mediaeval context, pride and hubris, together with appetite, desire and will offer other variations worthy of mention. The intentional objects of pride, its material objects, can be very diverse. But at this point, the consideration of appetite obliges us to advance an elemental phenomenological appreciation with respect to its formal object: how the material object appears to us. As the basic formula reflects, the formal object of pride is excellence or value. Pride may be directed at, or be motivated by, a variety of material objects, but the sense of pride requires that they should be considered in some way important or valuable. Pride directed to something that is not valuable in any way for the subject makes no sense. Pride as a feeling or an emotion reflects the consciousness of excellence or any element in which it is externalised, such as self-​affirmation, equality or difference. Also, pride as an appetite is directed to it; it is desire, will or the spur towards excellence. As I said in the first chapter, what is phenomenologically false is that desire can be directed to pride directly because then it destroys it. Without the need for many technical frills, this is clearly reflected by such different authors as Aquinas (appetitus excellentiae) and Dyson (spur to excellence). Like goodness or happiness, pride is a derivative product. They are all destroyed if we aim for them directly, as they are subsidiary to value. In my opinion, Tracy’s analysis is not very subtle and her proposal of desire for pride as a motive and general explanation of human nature expresses (as I pointed out in Chapter 1) a psychological impossibility. Moreover, it is not difficult to also recognise a variation or shift of pride to the cognitive terrain. Given that pride is a feeling of own value or excellence,

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it is dependent on this estimation, verification, judgement or opinion. The cognitive and estimative variation of pride comes from the value judgement needed for this emotion. The cognitive formulations that we have found can be listed as follows: belief in merit or excellence of the magnanimous (Aristotle), a good opinion of oneself (Descartes), the normal or abnormal estimation of oneself (Ortega). There are expressions in which it is natural to describe the object of study in cognitive or estimative terms because the essence of pride requires this component. Finally, the proximate kind of pride may be shifted from the feeling to the character, move from the emotion to the inherent characteristic, from the feeling (feel pride, be proud) to the attitude or character (be a proud person). It is the shift from good pride (a feeling of one’s own value) to bad pride or hubris (attitude of superiority and disdain). It appears reasonable that the latter may come from the former, but one may also consider the lack of structural similarity of the two. Our very own Ortega fully recognises the narrow-​mindedness and estimative solipsism of ordinary pride, which does not prevent linking it to a perversion of self-​assessment (oc, 4: 463). In contrast, the phenomenologist Kolnai holds that it is a case of heterogenous phenomena and that it is not possible to derive one from the other. He supports this view basically on the intentional nature of the former and the lack of intentionality of the latter (Kolnai 1931: 69). I will refer to this point below, once the analysis of the material and formal objects of our emotion has been carried out. 3

Variations of Subject and Material Object: Oneself

Initially, the object of the feeling of pride is the actual subject. Subject and object coincide, and this coincidence is expressed by saying that it is a self-​ conscious emotion, like shame. As in the case of all mental phenomena, the subject of the experience of pride is, initially, individual. The fundamental formula of pride and the variations in its proximate type express it. The conceptual variation inherent to the subject of pride is the expansion to collective subjects of a very diverse type. In the first chapters of the book, we saw that the pride of Homeric heroes is fundamentally based on hierarchy or class. This dimension is also recognised in other ancient orders, such as democratic pride and peasant pride among the Greeks or the hubris of the people of Israel. Also, in the first two chapters on contemporary pride, the collective forms of pride are particularly relevant. In Chapter 11, we saw specific expressions, such as black pride and lgbtiq+​pride, as examples of a more general treatment, based on ideas of identity and difference. Now I only want to note that this is its place in

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the phenomenology of pride, and I simply refer to the above analyses. The conceptual variants of the subject of pride are carried out through notions, which we have already seen, of collective effervescence, I-​mode, we-​mode, collective hubris, etc. There are innumerable ancient historical and modern variations. With respect to the object, there is a distinction between the object to which the feeling is attached (material object) and the aspect under which it is contemplated (formal object). This section deals with the former, whose core starting point is the I, and the next section with the latter, whose core starting point is excellence or value. In the fundamental formula of pride (feeling of one’s own excellence), its object is the subject; the I, oneself. As it is a formula, it may not include the pertinent qualifications. But the formula offers an essential element if it is an eidetic centre that allows their organisation. I am going to order the variations and the considerations on the material object of pride into three points: the I, its qualities and identity; its peculiar intentional nature; the I and the others. First, we express with the same naturalness the fact of being proud of oneself as with a quality, property, action, virtue or own achievement. Perhaps pride in oneself is always due to a specific reason, but expressions that refer to the subject in general or to a particular reason are equally natural. For the feeling of pride to make sense, this quality or property must be estimable for the subject in some sense, except for very strange cases in which this element stretches until it becomes unrecognisable, turning into the formal aspect, which is the subject of the next section. With respect to the material objects which I have just pointed out (quality, ownership, etc.), two things appear relevant: the type of link with the subject and the extent to which it depends on them. The latter also leads us to the next section. We look at the former considering some representative cases of the multiplicity of material objects possible: the pride of beauty, hair, intelligence, courage, academic qualifications, wealth, power, race, nationality, aristocratic origins and humble origins. From the point of view of the link to the subject, it appears clear that pride may refer to different elements, provided that they are relevant to the subject’s identity. Pride reflects both personal options and—​perhaps to a greater extent—​ideological and axiological options of its environment and time. Pride reflects value. Pride in beauty, intelligence or possessions responds to idiosyncrasy and context. The great philologist Agustín García Calvo used to say that rather than the subject of language, the speaker is where language speaks. Perhaps we could say that more than considering what is valuable and becoming proud as a result, the subject is the place in which certain values find their worth, which are at the core of the subject’s identity. The value and pride in beauty may be as real and effective as the Trojan horse or Cleopatra’s

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nose. They may depend on natural or acquired qualities, or rather their cultivation. You may be profoundly proud of your degrees and someone else of having scorned them, of their ancestry or the humility of their elders. We have already seen the role of equality, identity and difference in our world. The material objects of pride are innumerable, but all of them depend on what one is, wants to be or they make her be and want to be. Second, the emotion of pride presents a peculiar intentional structure. Brentano defended the intentional character of all mental phenomena in general, and therefore of all feelings and emotions (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint ii, §5). In contrast, Husserl and Scheler argued for the existence of unintentional mental phenomena, in particular in the case of feelings. In his fifth logical investigation, Husserl analyses above all the case of pain (Logical Investigations v, §15). But his treatment is not favoured by the ambiguity between feelings and sensations, often expressed in German with the same term—​Gefühl—​so it also must be examined in other parts of his vast works. Also, Max Scheler is the phenomenologist who has most carefully studied emotional life and its relation to the world of values. He argues extensively for the specific nature of feelings and offers material (sensitive, vital, intellectual and spiritual strata) and formal (intentionality, emotional states and perceptions) distinctions of great wealth (Formalism in Ethics and Non-​formal Ethics of Values ii; v, §2, §8). Subsequently, the discussions on intentionality were extended with notions such as specific, double, collective and shared intentionality. My task is not to tackle these problems of phenomenology of feelings, but to locate the understanding of pride within this framework. In my opinion, the most relevant point in our case is the possibility of recognising a double intentionality in pride. Above all, it is important to note that the intentionality of a mental phenomenon is its direction, transfer or reference to an object, but this reference may be of many types. The most obvious case is perhaps when it corresponds to what from the grammatical point of view are direct objects, like when we fear something. But already in this case, we have to recognise the same relational intentionality although it is expressed otherwise, not through a direct grammatical object, but for example, with an objective genitive or a reason, such as when we talk about the fear of something or for something. Fear something, fear of something and fear for something express intentional relations. What we call an intentional relation or a reference to an object are relations of different types, many of which do not correspond to the relation of a verb and its direct object. It is true that this is the case in many of the elemental examples with which the relation of intentionality in general is demonstrated: to believe is to believe something, to imagine is to imagine something, to desire

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is to desire something, to remember is to remember something, to feel is to feel something. But above all, in the case of affective phenomena, the intentional or reference objects which give sense to their intentional nature adopt other varied forms that may correspond to objects, but also reasons, causes or motives. Being happy about something or for something is an intentional relation. In the case of pride, the intentional relation, the address to an object, is not expressed through a direct object and is perhaps more subtle than in other cases. In the simplest case, the basic case included in the essential formula for pride, it appears clear that the object of pride is the I or oneself. That is why we must start with it as its original material object: being or feeling proud is equivalent to being or feeling proud of oneself. The simplest variation which we can consider is when we merely add a quality or faculty: be proud of the hairstyle, of intelligence or of power. Now, this first and simple variation leads to delicate phenomenological discrepancies about its intentional structure. Some authors keep to the above structure, retain the I as the intentional object and interpret the quality as the reason for the feeling. Being proud of one’s hairstyle or intelligence would be equivalent to being proud of oneself for this reason, to be filled with pride for this reason (Salice and Montes 2016). Other authors put this interpretation into doubt and refer to Hume in his proposal of a double intentional object—​the quality and I—​which is included in the fact of being proud of one’s hairstyle or of one’s intelligence (Salmela and Sullivan 2017, who give more examples). In my opinion, or rather my way of thinking, I mean a phenomenological way of seeing, of sensing and contemplating, the second proposal is more faithful to the phenomenon. In my way of seeing things, the feeling of pride is intentionally directed in this case both to the quality and to the I. My hairstyle or my intelligence is the object of my pride, but I myself am also that. The idea that the object of pride is exclusively the I and the other element is its motive does not appear correct to me. However, in my opinion and in my way of seeing things, there are other objects of pride for which double intentionality merges into one; but in this case the intentional object does not lie on the side of the I, as in the case of the first interpretation, but on the side of the object of this agreeable feeling. Here we arrive at the third point, the case in which the material object of pride is not a quality or faculty of the subject, but another subject with which it has a certain link. There are few feelings as beautiful as being proud of someone. In accordance with the first way of seeing it which I have just noted, the object of the feeling is oneself and the other is its motive. In accordance with the second, it is a feeling with double intentionality. In my way of seeing things,

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the phenomenological fact is different. If you are proud of your hair style, your biceps or your memory, you are proud of these qualities and incidentally of yourself. However, if you are proud of your daughter, you are not proud of yourself because of your daughter, nor are you proud of yourself and of your daughter: you are simply proud of her; she deserves to enjoy the material objectivity of the feeling exclusively. Another different thing is that this marvellous feeling naturally gives rise to another, being or feeling proud of having a daughter like that. But phenomena are phenomena, and you can stop to contemplate them or not. My vision and my proposal is that being proud of a daughter and being proud of oneself for having the daughter are two different acts. This point may also be illustrated with the counterparty of pride, which is shame. This is what authors do who offer the first of the three interpretations specified. In the technical language presented, the modalities of pride and shame we are considering are classified as hetero-​induced self-​conscious emotions. According to their penetrating analysis at any rate, the object of the emotion is oneself, although it is induced by another. Although they write in English, they also produce a Spanish reflective expression to highlight that the object is the subject: enorgullecerse de alguien o por alguien (be proud of someone or for someone). And they take this same reading to the title of their analysis on shame: I am ashamed of myself because of you (Montes and Salice 2016). Now, the expressions be proud because of another and be ashamed of oneself because of another certainly express real phenomena which correspond to their interpretation. However, and in my opinion, being proud of someone and being ashamed of someone are more natural expressions that correspond to what are also more natural phenomena, perhaps more frequent than the others, and that cannot be subsumed to them, not even in the case of the last reflexive expression. To be ashamed of yourself because of another sounds a very forced expression, which aims to highlight that the object of the feeling is the subject. To be ashamed of someone can perhaps be given both readings. But, at this point, we have another natural expression which unravels the ambiguity: la vergüenza ajena (embarrassment for someone). The way I see it, the object of vergüenza ajena is not oneself, but another, so that feeling it is something very different from feeling shame for someone else’s blame. Perhaps this expression allows us to make clear a possible origin of the discrepancy. The material object of pride for another or vergüenza ajena is not oneself, but the other. What is true is that the subject of this feeling is oneself, the person who feels it, and perhaps the fact of feeling it may produce a confusion in the analysis, leading us to think that it also deals with oneself. In short, my thesis is that being proud of another person, such as the Australian chancellor of her recently graduated odontologists, is not a reflective feeling, but a feeling

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that is fully focused on them. To feel it, it is enough that the I is a subject, which involves having a sense of oneself in every emotion, without the need to directly be its object. Of what there is no doubt is that the other or others must have a great relevance for my identity. When commenting on the Kantian reflection on emotions, Martin Heidegger offers a masterly description of the form in which every emotion, although it turns on a determined object, involves, to a certain extent, a revelation or sense of oneself for the subject. The description of this phenomenon may illustrate the idea that pride fully directed to the other reveals the subject without the need to be considered a fully self-​conscious emotion, something that occurs in other cases, but not in this one. We must elucidate this state of affairs phenomenologically. It pertains in general to the essential nature of feeling not only that it is feeling for something but also that this feeling for something at the same time makes feelable the feeler himself and his state, his being in the broadest sense. Conceived in formally universal terms, feeling expresses for Kant a peculiar mode of revelation of the ego. In having a feeling for something there is always present at the same time a self-​feeling, and in this self-​ feeling a mode of becoming revealed to oneself. The manner in which I become manifest to myself in feeling is determined in part by that for which I have a feeling in this feeling. Thus it appears that feeling is not a simple reflection upon oneself but rather a feeling of self in having a feeling for something. This is a structure already somewhat complex but intrinsically unitary. Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (1927), §13; ga 24, 187/​132. Transl. a. hofstadter

4

Variations of the Formal Object: Excellence

The formal object of pride is excellence or value, because you are proud of yourself, of something or someone as excellent or valuable in some way. Pride reflects value, and the history of pride reflects the history of value. This history is complex, but it is worth giving a brief summary here. In classical Greece, the history of the mentalities and concepts of education and training (paideía) enlightens, recognises or postulates new values. These new values do not always replace the old; rather, at times they integrate them, more or less transformed, as can be seen in the pride and self-​affirmation of heroes, citizens, philosophers and peasants. In Judaeo-​Christian history, pride and value are

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decided before God. In modernity, they depend on other individuals. In the contemporary world, identities and groups are pulled out of shape. As in the case of the material object, I am going to distinguish three main variations of the formal object of pride: effort and merit, comparisons and mediocrity. First, the disparity of possible material objects of pride raises the question about intervention and the merit of the subject in its value or excellence. In her definition of pride in Spanish, María Moliner juxtaposes merit and qualities, and I have already noted that merit appears more fitting in the contemporary world. The distinction between merit and qualities lies at the base of the distinction in psychology of pride, between proper pride and hubristic pride, due to Jessica Tracy and her collaborators. It is also the basis for the distinction made by Ulrich Steinvorth between achievement pride and inheritance pride (2016: 21). In some recent articles, Jeremy Fischer argues that in most contemporary proposals, a necessary connection is established between pride and agency or merit. He classifies them as agency accounts of pride (Fischer 2016 and 2017). In contrast, according to this author the relation between pride and personal ideals is more basic. To my way of thinking, Fischer’s proposal is correct and corresponds to the link that I have recognised from the start between pride, value and identity. However, because he does not sufficiently examine the contrast between emotion and character and emphasises too much the idea of personal ideals, he also ends up attributing commitment to the ideals to a proud character, which is quite strange (Fischer 2012). It appears more precise to me to make use of notions of value, identity and intentionality and move from them to merit or agency. The interweaving between nature and merit, race and culture, inertia and effort, performs a key role throughout the history of pride. Achilles is great because of his lineage and because he is primum inter pares. Asking him which of the two he is prouder of or whether he is stronger by nature or by his own merit would be completely impertinent. But the comparison between race and culture is present throughout the whole development and transformations of the Greek aristocrats of blood, money, knowledge and virtue. Judaeo-​Christian history introduces another perspective into the relationship between excellence and effort. All excellence is a gift and mediaeval pride or hubris precisely consists of wanting it without order, trying to enjoy it or achieve it ‘by one’s own strength’, whether it is a case of the beautiful angel, the first parents, the people of Israel or even Doctor Faustus. In the contemporary world, the variation of excellence to effort and merit offers two very beautiful forms. First, in Chapter 10 we saw the depth, and a certain limitation, of Ortega’s aristocratic vision. As he notes with great beauty, nobility signifies effort, the noble or excellent person is the person who is hard-​working and serves the

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ideal. It is without doubt one of the best versions of desire or appetite for the noble or valuable, in which excellence is rooted in the object to which it is aimed at, according to the will with which it is pursued. But we also had to qualify at the time the emotion and lyricism of Ortega. In the context of a theory of society and leadership, excellence cannot lose all connection with the object, be based entirely on effort and distance itself from objectivity and achievements, because in this case we hard-​working plebeians would be attributed undeserved values. That is undoubtedly not what Ortega seeks. But in other contexts, value, excellence, merit and pride experience a natural shift towards effort and will. The subject is thus the rule and measure of themself. Love is an emotion that manifests the most beautiful relativisation. Love consists, among other things, of seeing the other in the light of their best version. Having picked up this gauntlet, pride in oneself and pride in others through the will, effort, self-​affirmation or work is one form of love; whether for the second doctorate of a highly gifted student, the first steps of an injured patient or a disabled child tackling a new problem. However, this match does not annul all the differences between pride and love. To my way of seeing things, there is a clear difference between the conditioned character of the former and the unconditioned character of the latter. Relaxation and softness easily affect pride for another, but not so easily love. Second, we cannot avoid the delicate question of comparison or comparisons. In the first steps of this journey, we saw that ordinary language expresses the contrast of two prides by the contrast between excellence and superiority. Good pride is a feeling of one’s own excellence, while bad pride or hubris is the attitude of superiority and disdain. Initially, excellence appears to be linked to value and superiority to comparison. And as popular wisdom tells us, all comparisons are odious. Now, ordinary language also shows that the notion of excellence additionally includes comparison. Excellent means outstanding, one that stands out, and you can only stand out with respect to others. Excellence and superiority share the idea of comparison, but perhaps a difference can be recognised through their direction. Excellence means movement from between, a movement from down to up, which appears in line with the variation of appetite for pride, the desire or will to strive for excellence, which may be reasonable or excessive. In contrast, superiority is measured from up to down; it does not appear to consist so much of going up as of pushing others down, in looking down on them and humiliating them in order to stand out. This is a radical difference between good pride and one’s own desire to rise and bad pride and the wish to keep others down.

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I don’t know whether all comparisons are odious, but at least it must be admitted that many are ugly. I have just argued that the relativisation of value and pride in oneself, the reference of superiority to oneself, to the desire to better oneself or the wish for self-​improvement, is beautiful. Relativisation shows us an essential dimension of pride; a democratic dimension that is more of our environment than of previous worlds. But referring all excellence and all comparison to the subject is just another form of fooling yourself. In his analysis of Spanish pride, Ortega attributes to Nietzsche the distinction, which he considers inspired, between reflexive valuation, as a comparison with others, and spontaneous valuation, as a comparison with oneself. The former is very plebeian and the latter highly noble. At the time I only added for the sake of correctness a reference to show that the distinction comes from Saint Paul. Now I would simply like to add that without these reviled self-​conscious valuations and comparisons, the Nietzschean treatment of the strong and the weak, the great and the plebs, is not only false (which I have attempted to prove in Chapter 9) but completely unintelligible. For my part, I freely recognise the growing importance for contemporary minds of comparison with oneself and the relativisation of pride. I hope to return to this in the final pages of the book, but from a perspective with different objectives. At any event, the history of pride is incomprehensible without comparisons. Try telling Achilles that he doesn’t need to compare himself with anyone and that there is no greater value than the value of being a man (I mean, demigod) so there is no more beautiful pride than the pride of being a man (I mean, demigod). In this way, we would not only be left without his anger and without the Iliad, but also without the elements for understanding the corporate Homeric pride of modern executives, who measure their greatness by the size of their company cars. We should also remember the other side of the mentality of Homeric heroes, their self-​assurance, joy and sporting mentality, which challenges all comparison and which we, the magnanimous Nietzscheans with spontaneous judgements, would like for ourselves. It also does not appear that Lucifer would freely accept the idea that there is no higher value than the value of being an angel. His pride fully rests on comparison—​it is no coincidence that he was the most intelligent and the most beautiful angel—​and the comparative absolutisation of pride, if we can accept the oxymoron, in comparing himself to God. It is well-​known that from the point of view of comparison, human excess was at the level of the angel. Our first parents wanted to be like gods in terms of knowledge. The different Doctor Faustuses did not lack ambiguities, but all of them shared this drive to some extent. And in terms of the superman, to use the inspired distinction of his creator and his magnanimous way of valuing himself without comparing

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or aiming to be superior, he should from now on be called, at most, paraman. What is perhaps less well-​known is that, however incredible it may seem, human excess, in its philosophical form, has managed to set its sights higher still. The angel did not aim to be better than God, but to be his equal, but the philosopher found a way of going one better. As it is impossible to exceed God in absolute terms, the stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca adjusts his greatness and his pride to his will and effort, arguing that his rectitude and integrity are more meritorious than those of God, as the latter has them by nature, while his are the result of discipline and the exercise of freedom. Whatever the case, I think that the problem of comparison is not sufficiently dealt with by the above considerations. I hope that the analysis which I have offered so far is not completely irrelevant and ends up providing a good starting point for other research. However, in my view, dependence, independence, engagement or disconnection with excellence, value, comparison and pride require recourse to phenomenological tools of greater power and depth. Without doubt, this would be a good time to proceed to a careful suspension of judgement or prideological epoché to lay the foundations on which we can undertake a fundamental prideological meditation. Note that this epoché and meditation related to pride are very partial as phenomenological epoché and meditation. They are not as excessive as the general phenomenological epoché and meditation and do not aim to disconnect from all reality, but only the comparisons, to clear the terrain and the lógos a little and offer some sketches of the pure science of pride. However, I am convinced that this meditation may prove more incisive and useful after adding elements that are missing. It is postponed until the consideration of the posthuman realities and the corresponding post-​pride, source and root of new enigmas and perplexities, in the face of which we cannot look the other way. Finally, the third eidetic variation of the formal object of pride is the shift of feeling, the verification and affirmation of one’s own value, the self-​affirmation of oneself or of what is one’s own as valuable, to the statement of oneself losing sight of value, the mere self-​affirmation. Of the three original elements (feeling, own, value) the third is disappearing, leaving feeling and affirmation of the I as I. I have held from the start that the essence of the emotion of pride includes feeling and awareness of value. This means that the emotion of pride, must, if it is to be of pride, point to something valuable in some regard for its subject. The loss of value involves the destruction of pride. Thus, if the I or self-​ affirmation acquires exclusivity at the cost of value, pride is stretched until it becomes unrecognisable. The limits of value are the limits of pride. If this is so, the destruction of value involves the destruction of pride, properly speaking. And two possibilities

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arise, according to whether the attitude to others is solidarity or scorn. I return to the latter, which corresponds to ordinary pride, in the next section. In terms of the former, as we saw in Chapter 10, modifying slightly Ortega’s analysis, if value continues to beat in the heart of the mass-​man, mediocrity will be accompanied by resentment. However, if value no longer beats in his heart, we all know that the mass-​man can carry out, in spite of everything, a heroic additional act and affirm himself decisively, affirm his supportive mediocrity even with pride. But pride without value is not pride. We are therefore facing a case in which reality easily exceeds the limits of logic and language. It is clear that pride without value—​mass pride—​is an impossible pride. But it is also clear that this is real pride. 5

Variations of Modality: Order and Disorder

The traditional form of pride or hubris in which the consideration of the mode or modality is most relevant is the mediaeval one, accurately and repeatedly taken up by Thomas Aquinas, as we have seen in detail, in the formula disorderly appetite for one’s own excellence. Based on this formulation, we can organise the following variations. First, the classification of an appetite as disorderly invites us to also consider the possibility of an orderly appetite aimed at the same or similar object. Second, this is a good place to recover the problem of the loss of the object, which had arisen both in the examination of the material object and in the formal object. To do so, we will return to the question of intentionality and arrive at the distinction mentioned above between mediaeval pride and contemporary pride, which is reflected in ordinary language. Finally, although it is not strictly a case of typical variations, the distinctions between pride and hubris, to which we have arrived after some much work, do not prevent them from being confused and reinforced in other contexts, with results that may be useful, if only for the purpose of a conceptual pirouette. With respect to the first, although the expression orderly appetite for excellence does not form part of mediaeval language, unlike disorderly appetite, in my opinion the thing itself forms part of the conceptual order, both in the mediaeval world and beyond it. The natural mediaeval place for orderly appetite is magnanimity. In its time, we saw the intellectual earthquake that took place at the start of the 13th Century with the introduction of the Aristotelean concept of greatness of the world and for the world, the rejection by the Franciscans and the integration aimed for by Aquinas in his system. It was not easy to combine with spiritual humility. Magnanimity is a virtue, a habit, but its link with appetite and feeling is natural. That is why magnanimity is considered as the

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positive version of pride, in both the ancient and mediaeval world, in all studies and monographs which I have alluded to in Chapter 1. The correctness of the formula disorderly appetite for excellence allows Aquinas to develop the distinction between moral hubris and spiritual hubris and conclude his decisive interpretations of the most elementary sins: angelic sin and human sin. The modes or modalities of order and disorder also allow the establishment of crucial distinctions in specific forms of the appetite for excellence. One of the most notable kinds is the appetite for knowledge. As everyone now knows, its orderly modality is the enlightened drive, and its disorderly modality is Faustian drive. At first sight, it may be thought that mode is an element that is not at the core of the essence of pride. In fact, it does not appear in the initial linguistic nucleus of three elements (feeling, own, value). I have proposed adding it, together with the subject, to explain the essence of pride and examine its variations more completely. Faustian appetite is a good example for showing the relevance of the mode, as it gives rise naturally to taking the part for the whole, or rather to designating the whole (pride) based on a part or aspect (the mode). Although the interpretation of Faustian pride is not simple, and the Faustian drive appears at times to be a drive without an object, it is also true that this appetite is designated naturally by its mode: Faustian excess. In a different conceptual order, an eminent form of Greek pride—​húbris—​is often rendered also by the mode of excess. Second, although it is not strictly a variation of modality, order and disorder in the direction of the object invite us to contemplate the weakness of this link and even its elimination. The consideration of the object is decisive for the distinction in ordinary language between pride and hubris, the feeling of pride and the proud or hubristic attitude and character. According to the phenomenologist Aurel Kolnai, intentionality is the feature that allows us to distinguish them clearly. Pride (Stolz) is an intentional phenomenon; it has an object, while hubris (Hochmut) is not intentional. In accordance with his analysis, they are heterogeneous phenomena, and one cannot be derived from the other. Certainly, they are elements of mental life of different orders. One thing is to feel and desire, while features of character and the disposition to act are quite another thing. In my opinion, however, this structural dissimilarity does not have to exclude a genetic parentage. At least it appears difficult to prove that there may not be one. Whatever the case, it is once more worth highlighting the difference between pride as attitude and character, included in ordinary language, and pride as a disorderly appetite for excellence. In the first case, it is an attitude and form of being which, if it comes from pride, has lost the formal object of its intentionality, which is value; so that the material object must also function as a formal

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object. The I as valuable cedes its place to the I as I, although the hubristic person is not aware of it. This psychological collapse can also be interpreted as a collapse of intentionality. Blindness to value naturally gives rise to isolation and scorn of the other. In contrast, mediaeval hubris, hubris as a disorderly appetite for excellence, cannot lose its intentionality without stopping being what it is. The difference between good pride and bad pride—​hubris in the contemporary world—​is the radical difference between feeling and character, between intentionality to the own value and egological collapse. In contrast, the difference between noble pride and mediaeval pride is the shift from feeling to appetite, an enriching shift, and disorder, which although it gets bad press, must be recognised as enriching, at times. Mediaeval hubris is not hubris but pride, an excessive pride. This form of hubris does not lose its nobility when it loses intentionality, but when it loses piety. Finally, let’s see some conceptual curiosities on the duality of pride and hubris. Two are due to the coldness of the composer Adrian Leverkühn and the other to the ardour of the Spanish Romancero. In accordance with the phenomenological analysis, hubris may not be conceived as an excess of pride due to its intentional lack of similarity. What escaped the phenomenologist was the inverse phenomenon, inherent to the psychology of Leverkühn: for his professors, what was most irritating about his youthful hubris lay not in the excess, but in the lack of pride with respect to his capacities and facility for the subjects they taught. The composer also prompted another peculiar pirouette, which is unusual in emotional life: the increase to the 2nd degree of the feeling of pride: his friend Zeitbloom declared himself fundamentally proud of the pride of Leverkühn. But while philosophy helps distinguish pride and hubris analytically, it is poetry that serves to confuse and reinforce them passionately. In war: With hubris and great pride he grasped the part of the lance towards its handle; and anyone he struck with it he left stupefied. And in love: With hubris and great pride burning with love and bloodlust brave Rodamonte sets out searching for his lover.

pa rt 3 The Future of Pride

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­c hapter 13

Post-​pride 1

Infra-​humanity and Post-​humanity

Humanity’s days are probably numbered. But I would like to say here that without a doubt human nature has its days numbered. The human nature which emerged from Eve’s sin will not be eternal, like Rome. Technological development is not a panacea, but we can’t ignore the application of technology to the development of physical and cognitive faculties that transcend the current human condition. This is where the idea of transhumanism comes from. In reality, transhumanism can’t be expressed in words: ‘Trasumanar significar per verba | non si poria; però l’essemplo basti | a cui esperienza grazia serba’ (Paradise i, 70–​72). Later on, I will try to pick up this inordinate gauntlet of Dante. In addition to drafting it, I will try to solfeggio and play the last paragraph. Until then, I will do what I can with mere words. Some of these technological interventions are already being implemented today, such as the use of mechanical prostheses; pacemakers and arms or legs moved by thought are normal. Furthermore, a reality is the introduction of genes of one species into the genome of others, such as those of Arctic fish in some farms to increase their resistance to freezing. The possibility of technological interventions in human beings does not appear too far in the future, resulting in very different types of capacities—​not only physical and cognitive, but also emotional and moral—​which can’t be conceived in our current condition. This is where the idea of posthumanism comes from. These issues have recently been receiving a great deal of attention, both in public opinion and specialised literature. I owe the general background to the excellent book by Antonio Diéguez (Transhumanismo, 2017). First of all, as Diéguez notes, we have to distinguish between cultural and technological posthumanism. Cultural posthumanism attributes many evils to modern humanism, such as racism, sexism, injustice, exploitation and climate change. It is inspired above all in the work of post-​modern French thinkers. But to reflect on the future of pride and post-​pride, what interests us is not cultural posthumanism, but technological posthumanism. Two major areas of the latter can be distinguished: 1. The integration of man and machine, which ranges from current prosthetic developments (which I have just mentioned) to more forecasts which may be more speculative but can’t be considered arbitrary. These

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forecasts include brain implants, like the childhood memories of the replicants in the film Blade Runner (1982); an unimaginable leap in human cognitive capacities, which some authors call the singularity; or the transfer of our minds into machines. 2. Biotechnology, like the genetic engineering I referred to in the case of Arctic fish, or synthetic biology, which will allow the development of artificial organs or even artificial living beings. One of the most spectacular areas is the fight against ageing, involving genetic studies of fish that live for hundreds of years, trees that live for thousands or bacteria that practically don’t age, in an attempt to understand the behaviour of their genes and incorporate them into other living beings. But there could also be direct intervention in the ageing mechanisms of cells and tissues. There is no lack of speculation in this field which is unwarranted in the light of current data, but there are also very serious proposals and reflections, anchored in scientific projects under way on the replication of the human brain or the fight against ageing, which are those that interest us here. It is not only a question of the fight against genetic diseases or the improvement of existing qualities, but also of reversing ageing and postponing death indefinitely. In this case, the term amortality not immortality is used, as posthuman beings of indefinite duration would not be free of accidents or murder (Diéguez 2017, passim). There is also the contrast between infrahumanity and posthumanity. Infrahumanity can be understood in two ways. It can describe the state of entire communities due to social inequalities, conflicts and lack of opportunities. In my opinion, these forms of being destitute are essentially political and it is perfectly legitimate to classify them as infrahuman. But the classification is independent of the prior questions on technological posthumanism and is fully valid in our modern world, in which there are still no posthuman beings. We could also talk about infrahumanity in a second sense if technology were used, for example, to develop other beings from human beings, with lower intellectual capacities and higher physical ones. These beings could be used as a labour force, like the lower classes in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World (1932). The replicants in Blade Runner have physical capacities that are higher than ours, though their intellectual capacities are suggested to be similar. As readers may recall, to ensure they can’t escape their condition as slaves, they have an expiry date. In my opinion, the current division between humanity and infrahumanity—​ in the first sense of the concept, the most destitute ranks of our societies and to a large extent of the populations of the poorest states, nearly always failed states—​is the most serious and most pressing problem currently faced by human beings. Waiting for technological solutions is a flimsy excuse for not

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addressing economic and political problems on their own terms. Reflection about the ideas of global justice and structural injustice of recent decades is crucial in this area, which is what interests me most. But here I am going to restrict myself to technological posthumanism because it is relevant for the conclusion of our reflection on pride. In the area of technology, it is worth distinguishing these three levels: technological infrahumanity (if it is developed); current humanity, to which all the people we know belong and will probably continue to belong; and improved humanity, posthumanity or, to put it frankly, supermen or superhumans, using the term in this technical sense and not as a Nietzschean or infantile remark. Having said that, there is an element lacking in what we have seen so far to which the theoreticians of human enhancement tend to refer, and that is moral and emotional enhancement. The reflections in this area are also delicate. As far as I know, when specifying the area of moral enhancement, what is usually mentioned is basically the enhancement of civic virtues or a sense of justice. I will refer to this issue in the last point. 2

Subhuman, Human and Superhuman Dignity

Philosophical thought, ideologies and religions must, of necessity, be shaken up by the possibility of the development of posthuman beings. The idea of human limits, distinction between human beings and gods, man and God, is a constant in many religious and spiritual traditions. In this book, we have seen their role in classical Greece and in Judaeo-​Christian history from the point of view of pride and the self-​conception of human beings. Religions are compelled to deliver new reflections, not necessarily negationist, but perhaps markedly prudential. I will limit myself now to two philosophical notes, one on different forms of nature and dignity, and the other on the morality of supermen. In both cases, we are of course interested in their relevance for pride. Philosophy in general also has to be disoriented in the face of possibilities of a profound technological transformation of the physical, cognitive, moral and emotional capacities of human beings. Students of these matters tend to say that anyone who says the opposite has not stopped to think about it. I wholeheartedly agree with that. A common way out that some philosophers adopt when we don’t know what to think is to cite Kant, and that’s what I am going to do now. The great philosophers always help us think better, but you don’t always have to agree with them. I am going to refer to him in this section and the next. In both cases, I will use his ideas for support, but in the first I also

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offer a criticism and a different idea, while in the second, his proposal serves to criticise alternatives. In his little work Conjectures on the Beginnings of Human History (1786), Kant recreates philosophically (without citing Aquinas) the myth of original sin narrated in Genesis as a transition from the animal condition to the human condition, which he compares with the Enlightenment. In this transition, when humans become aware of their nature of being an end in themselves (according to Kant) they can imagine superior beings in terms of natural endowments, but who do not therefore have the right to rule over them (Ak viii, 114). It is a way of claiming that these beings may be superior in physical or even intellectual qualities, but not in dignity. Let’s imagine for the sake of argument that human dignity is based on rationality and freedom (the structure of subjectivity, human nature or rational agency, in a historical and open sense, of course), rather than on the capacity to feel or suffer. But human nature is a product of biological history. It is difficult to deny that there are other forms of dignity based on other natures. Animals undoubtedly possess a value and a dignity, due to their own form of intelligence and—​why not?—​also their capacity to suffer. And we have to recognise that, in line with the scientific information we have, a subgroup of them, the great apes, have a special intelligence, in some cases even accompanied by the capacity to develop certain types of proto-​moral judgements, such as disapproval of unjust treatment. This fact would reveal a certain disassociation from the organic, which is a feature that sums up well the distinction between animals and humans. Although I can’t develop this subject slowly, anthropology and ethology still appear to allow a qualitative distinction between the intellectual capacities of the great apes and ours, which are the basis of two types of value or dignity, higher than other types of animal dignity: simian dignity and human dignity. Against what some great philosophers claim, children, disabled humans and great apes with similar or higher intellectual capacities have a different axiological status and different rights, because children and the disabled have a different nature to apes. This is because even though they do not possess all their capacities as developed, children because they have not yet reached that point, and the disabled because tragically they can’t, children and the disabled possess an essence or nature that is different from that of apes, even if it is the product of biological history. That is why it is not a tragedy that an ape can’t learn to read, but it is a tragedy if a disabled person can’t. Of course, this would have to be developed philosophically—​that is, metaphysically—​but we have to leave that for another time.

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This reflection has to be extended to our human ancestors (Hominini) and future supermen. As far as I know, we don’t have a good idea of the intellectual capacities of Hominini. We don’t know whether it is possible to have minds that are really intermediate between what are great apes and the human beings who are members of our species. We don’t know whether Hominini had an intelligence similar to that of the great apes, ours, or somewhere in-​between. We also don’t know whether some species of Hominini were of one form and others of another. If some species had capacities similar to ours, it is clear that they would have a share of human nature and dignity. If their capacities were intermediate, we would be dealing with a hominin mind and dignity, which would involve greater rights than those of the great apes, but not like ours. So now we arrive at posthumanism, the appearance of posthuman beings, some of whom will undoubtedly deserve to be classified as supermen. Leaving aside all technophilia or technological messianism, it is undoubtedly true that technological development is progressing towards an increase in physical and cognitive capacities. We are beginning to glimpse some of them, but others are fairly difficult to imagine. Our knowledge is very limited and is bound by time. Of course, the mental strength of the great Immanuel Kant was unlimited, but perhaps it can be said without fear of sacrilege that some of his knowledge was also bound by his time. At any rate, I consider that he was lacking the necessary elements to deal with infrahuman (simians and Hominini) and superhuman capacities. Of course, his ignorance was not his fault. In light of this, it appears difficult to deny that superhuman capacities will constitute a more than sound basis for a superhuman dignity and superhuman rights. As we have seen, pride is a reflection of value and the history of pride is a reflection of the history of value. It doesn’t appear too daring to conjecture that the future of pride will probably also be a reflection of the future of value. But before dealing specifically with superhuman dignity, morality and pride, it will be useful to refer to other elements of comparison. Without doubt, we can’t conceive of the idea of a superhuman or posthuman pride except by reference to human pride or prides. But at this juncture the perspective is extended if we also take into consideration some eminent forms of infrahuman pride, such as simian pride and hominin pride. Everyone knows that all the hominin species except for our own are extinct. Their mental capacities, dignity and pride have not been fossilised. Our knowledge about them is highly conjectural, so to my great regret I can’t examine and distinguish properly simian pride and hominin pride. I will therefore limit myself to evoking some eloquent scenes from films. The best way of getting an idea of the nature of simian or hominin pride is to recall some iconic scenes: the characters in The Planet of the Apes recognised and valued each

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other by comparison with men (‘They’re all equal!’); Tarzan’s cry is worth more than a thousand words; and the simian or hominin leader in 2001: A Space Odyssey explodes with power and pride, throwing a bone into the sky and using it as a tool to kill and destroy his rival, with the same grandiose music with which the great Zarathustra brandished his eagle and his pride. If it is the case of a monkey, we are faced with a powerful metaphor of hominisation; in the case of a hominin, that of humanisation. In either case, this scene raises the very uncomfortable suspicion that the superhuman nature of the great prophet may perhaps have conserved simian or hominin features, which cried to be superseded by others more human. Moreover, this film offers, in waltz time, another singular example of a pride that I would not know whether to consider it infrahuman, superhuman or parahuman: the pride of machines. I don’t know how to deal with the pride of hal, the supercomputer which runs the spaceship. I don’t have any idea whether the machine has dignity or not. But it’s clear that it does not lack pride and we know that pride is a reflection of value. Neither do I know whether the machine is capable of feeling, even though it may be a rational feeling. His co-​passengers in the spaceship admit that they don’t know either. If this were the case, we would have to use the eidetic variation which allows a conceptualisation of pride from knowledge. What a machine can’t do, and will never be able to do, and nor will a superman or demigod, is to contradict the essence or logical nucleus of pride, fixed for ever by venerable phenomenological analysis. This proves that this analysis is a humble human creation, but valid in the world of ideas, to which monkeys and kings have had to yield avant la lettre and to which machines and supermen will also have to yield. Inevitably, to be pride, the pride of machines can only be the feeling (or the knowledge, if they are not capable of feeling) of their own excellence.



hal: Good afternoon, Mr. Love. All this is going extremely well. love: Hal, you have an enormous responsibility on this mission. In many ways, perhaps the biggest responsibility of any individual element on the mission. You are the brain and central nervous system of the spaceship, and your responsibilities include monitoring men in hibernation. Do you ever feel a lack of confidence? hal: Let me put it this way, Mr. Love. Computers of the 9000 series are the most reliable ever constructed. No computer of the 9000 series has ever committed an error or has supplied mistaken information. We are all, in any practical definition of the words, infallible and incapable of error.

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love:

Hal, despite your enormous intellect, do you ever feel frustrated by your dependence on people to perform your actions? hal: Not in the slightest. I like working with people. I have a stimulating relationship with Dr. Poole and Dr. Bowman. My responsibilities in the mission cover the whole operation of the spaceship, so I am always occupied. I’m putting myself at the maximum use possible, which is everything, I believe, that any entity which is aware may hope to do. […] love: Dr. Poole, what is it like to live most of the year so close to Hal? poole: Well, it’s rather like what you said before about him. He’s like a sixth member of the crew … You adapt very quickly to the idea that he talks, and think of him … really, like another person. love: When you speak with the computer, you feel it’s capable of emotional answers. For example, when I asked him about his skills, I felt a certain pride in his answer with respect to his precision and perfection. Do you believe that Hal has genuine emotions? bowman: Well, he behaves as if he had genuine emotions. Er … of course, he’s programmed in this way so that it will be easier for us to talk to him, but whether or not he has real emotions is something that no one can answer with certainty. The Morality and Pride of Supermen

People often talk about not only physical and cognitive improvement, but also moral improvement. The idea tends to be that, just as we will be able to intervene technologically to enhance the physical and intellectual capacities or remove the genes responsible for terrible diseases, we will be able to intervene to generate the moral behaviour and emotions we consider better. Of course, in the field of artificial intelligence, it is problematic to think that intelligent machines will respond simply to the ways they are programmed and that we can foresee their development, as if artificial intelligence consisted only of calculating with increasingly greater power. The question is what type of self-​learning could be developed by the smart machines and whether an intelligence that is versatile and located like the human is possible or conceivable. Many authors think so. What I want to do is raise this problem in the moral field.

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In my opinion, we tend to think of improvement in moral qualities to be like the improvement of physical qualities, which appears gradually, unlike the leap of intellectual improvement, which appears much more qualitative and separated from previous levels. That is why it is so difficult to imagine intellectual and symbolic capacities that are intermediate between the great apes and us. In any case, I wonder if it is reasonable to think that the moral qualities of posthuman beings—​supermen—​could be programmed without them having anything to say about it. Wouldn’t superior intelligences have their own moral criteria and own emotions? What implication would this have for ethics, values, rights, dignity and pride? If reason is and must be a slave to the passions, as Hume says, perhaps it makes more sense to think that we can direct or programme the moral development of super-​intelligent beings in advance, whether in order for them to serve themselves or to serve the common good. But if reason intervenes in morality, as Kant thought, perhaps the will of super-​intelligent beings—​the supermen—​is much more strongly linked to their reason than ours. This would be good news. Jacques Maritain recognised that the biggest problem of human rights is the practical problem of implementing them, but also insisted that as a philosopher, he was more interested in the theoretical problem of their foundation. Similarly, we have to recognise that the biggest problem with respect to the intelligence and morality of supermen is what they would do with them and how it would affect us; but perhaps let me add that as a philosopher I am extremely interested in the imminent resolution, by way of actual events, of the theoretical argument between Hume and Kant on the relationship between reason and the passions. If the morality of supermen were more closely linked to reason than ours, if these new creatures politely agreed with Kant rather than Hume, it is not crazy to think that as supermen, they would necessarily and naturally be at the service of the cause of global justice and human rights, even though these are not problems generated by them. Then we would have the best allies—​I mean, the best leaders—​in the fight against the persistent political split between well-​ off humanity and dispossessed infrahumanity, the greatest failure of modern humanity, which of itself makes us deserve extinction. Given the wealth of the world and the knowledge at our disposal, the persistence of this split, the continued existence of misery and injustice, can only be explained by the weakness of our intelligence and of our human, all too human, merely human, will. In principle, against another of Kant’s ideas, I have suggested that the superhuman nature, superintelligence and rational will could perhaps provide a foundation for superhuman dignity, superior to ours and which could form the foundation of loftier rights. But perhaps it is not too utopic to consider that

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the supermen themselves, if they are really such, will from the start give up on these rights and be satisfied with our merely human rights, if their reason really acts as a guide and compass for their will. At least it can be expected that they will do so until they have eradicated misery and put right the injustice tolerated by philosophy, the politics, dignity and rights of a humanity that is all too human, and incapable of rising to its own level. As in the case of machines, posthuman supermen may experience their value and self-​sacrifice with a certain pride. To attribute to them an emotion of excellence is probably to succumb to a rather naive anthropomorphism, but given their capacities, it makes no sense to deny them the knowledge of their excellence and thus a certain cognitive pride. In any event, if it can really be classified as pride, it will be a new pride, a different pride; not a passionate pride like ours, but a serene, rational and transvalued pride, for which perhaps it is not entirely impertinent to coin the term post-​pride. In my opinion, modern humans are not in a condition to know much about post-​pride, which for us will probably always be a terra incognita. Even so, to give us an idea about the superhuman pride of the future, however rudimentary the idea may be, I think that perhaps we could be inspired by recalling the superhuman pride of the past. However much it may annoy Nietzsche, who considers Zarathustra to be a superman, or some German scholars, who classify Doctor Faustus as a titan, frankly I think that their prides are moving, but merely human. I think that the only superhuman pride that we have found is that of the Homeric heroes and the angel. Perhaps, but only perhaps, they can help us make out something of posthuman pride. As we know, Homeric heroes or demigods experience two different forms of pride: corporate and sporting. Corporate pride is infantile, in both ontogenetic and phylogenetic terms. In ancient tragedy, Ajax’s tantrum when they deny him the arms of Patroclus is moving. In the contemporary world, the executive’s tantrum over the size of his car is ridiculous. In our time, it is a form of very generalised pride that is difficult to domesticate, no doubt because executives feel the greatness of ancient heroes beating in their hearts. The question is whether it will also be a preferential pride in the spirit of posthuman supermen. At this juncture, my proposal is to look for the differential factor in the knowledge of the phenomenology of pride, which is inaccessible for the mythical hero but easy to sense for the posthuman hero. The mythical hero is proud of his birth and his merits, but his ardent heart doesn’t blind him to the extent of making him project the latter on the former. The hero knows that being the stronger hero is his merit, but he also knows that he is not a hero by his own merits. His superhuman and semi-​divine nature is a gift. In contrast, the

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posthuman superman will be aware of the greater subtleties and eidetic variations of pride. The posthuman hero will no doubt maintain a certain awareness of not being the individual creator of himself. But at the same time, the conceptual extension of the subject of the pride, its empirical and conceptual de-​individualisation and the consequent extension of its material object, will be familiar to him. Although he is accompanied by a class pride, the wounded pride of Achilles only makes sense because of the fully individual character of its object. In contrast, it is difficult to imagine a posthuman superman who is fiery or enraged, as if he were some kind of Achilles or Zarathustra. His serene pride will probably be directed both towards his origin and towards himself, a combined new, individual and collective self, if I may use the poor categories we have to hand and which will undoubtedly no longer serve. The subject of this collective post-​pride, if I may call it that, will have carried out the collective ideal of the people of Israel if he had achieved what he is ‘by his own strength’. The Homeric heroes or demigods also reflected a joviality and sporting pride which has, unfortunately, had little effect on the human spirit. No doubt it is a fully valid ideal for us human beings, but it is more difficult to imagine posthuman supermen rolling around in the dung and sand of the beaches of Troy with the joy and naivety of ancient heroes. Even so, posthuman beings, with their powerful intelligence and clean appetite, will not come from nothing, but from the history of humanity; and they will preserve in their hearts the remains of its loftiest episodes. Perhaps they will not want to forget that their origin is the same as ours. If the ancient ardent heart is untimely for them, perhaps they will want to maintain this fire in their mind and will, at least while they live together with human beings, with our miseries and searing injustices. And while they are putting things right for us, they will no doubt let us believe, like children, that we are doing it ‘with our own strength’. Moreover, the pride of the angel, pure spirit, is the pride of excellence itself directed towards God, which leads the angel to want to be like Him. That is why it adopts the form of spiritual hubris or disobedience with respect to the higher being: non subdi. In a display of anthropocentrism, we could want to believe in the superiority of the human being over hal, on the grounds of being its creator. As well as hal’s pride in being a machine of the 9000 series, which never fails, we could interpret his unease with respect to the suspicion of error as hurt pride and his rebellion before men as insubordination to the superior, although in the latter case, it is perhaps a little far-​fetched to consider it a form of spiritual hubris. hal’s pride is also protean. For their part, in a world without God, the posthuman supermen will hardly be able to incur in the spiritual pride of wanting to be like Him. As in the case of their emotions, their appetite for excellence, if they have it, will be a rational appetite, which

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may accompany their cognitive pride. The most advanced posthuman supermen will not be pure spirit, but when their minds are loaded into an infinitely repairable machine, they will not be far off. Their post-​pride will be a pure post-​pride. They will have performed the angel’s ideal of being creators of themselves. They will leave behind not only feeling and appetite, but perhaps also the final duality between conscience and excellence, which will be fused into one, overcoming the distinction between subject and object and giving rise to the most sublime version of conscience or reflex pride, the nóesis noéseos, or the Aristotelian actuality of pure prideology. 4

Fundamental Prideological Meditation

The above short exercise in pride-​fiction allows us to resume the argument on real pride which we left pending in Chapter 12, Section 4 dedicated to excellence as the formal object of pride. As will be recalled, we had examined the subtle Nietzschean distinction between reflexive valuation and spontaneous valuation, which confused even Ortega himself. The relativisation of pride and the comparison with oneself are beautiful, but may not be generalised lightly. The lack of any comparison will destroy both the history of pride and its concept. To go into more detail on this point, it is a good idea to use some major phenomenological tools, something that I have so far postponed to be able to include a reference to posthuman beings. Initially, I will remain in the conventional territory of real pride, and we will examine it in the light of the disconnection of comparisons. I will then introduce known and unknown posthuman elements, today only glimpsed, but which may any day become normal. The phenomenological epoché is the radicalisation of the epoché or suspension of sceptical judgement. To clarify: the sceptical epoché is the suspension of all affirmation or position of truth, while phenomenological epoché is the suspension of any position of reality. It lies very far from the scope of my remit to adequately describe the mechanisms of these suspensions and the fascinating world opened up by them. In the case of phenomenology, the ineffable scope of pure consciousness is opened up fully for a few fortunate ones, in a celestial eidetic paradise and worthy recompense for the sufferings of a Dante. I am going to limit myself to establishing an analogy, which I consider justified and fruitful, between the suspension of truth of the sceptic, the bracketing of reality by the phenomenologist and the disconnection of comparisons of the prideologist. I will also base myself on other equally famous but more mundane suspensions, which will allow us perhaps to build a bridge between thought and art, for the greater glory and enrichment of both: the

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musical disconnections of worldly noise. The greatest representatives of philosophical suspensions are Descartes and his fireplace, Husserl in his room and Heidegger in his cabin. Descartes only needed a candle and a piece of wax and the Germans paper and a pencil, without any bin worthy of the name, to keep those of us who came later occupied and financed. And in another field, Paco de Lucía also locked himself in an empty room with a guitar and Albert Einstein with his violin. As they played for their group, there is no need to specify jazz musicians. They call isolating themselves and working hard with their instrument to shed or woodshed, evidently alluding to the magician of Messkirch. And so, I will now carry out, in all humility, my own basic prideological meditation. The tendency is to use the first-​person singular in these meditations, which does not involve any egological aim, but rather of general validity. I sincerely hope that the inspiration of such egregious precedents and the more modest nature and scope of my subject will make my task easier. In line with my elders, I am going to focus my prideological epoché or disconnection from comparisons in the areas to which I have referred: philosophical problems and musical harmony. I will need a book, and I have doubted for some time between two: Arnold Schönberg’s Harmonielehre or The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine. In the end, I opted for the latter. I will lock myself into an empty room with a pencil, paper, a piano and a book. The epoché or disconnection of my comparisons means that I will carry out all my activities without knowing what others do with them. First, I have meditated for some time on some philosophical topics of certain relevance: freedom, continuum, time, evil. I have studied philosophy, theology, law … and I know that we can’t know anything. But I have formulated some hypotheses, I have tested them, I have argued, and I have arrived at some conclusions. I have tried to soothe tiredness by dealing with other matters, such as the resolution of simple logical and mathematical problems. For all this time, I have maintained my prideological disconnection firm; I have isolated myself from all comparisons and I have diligently followed the Nietzschean mandate of suspending any reflexive valuation and allow to surface, carefully, a spontaneous, pristine and immaculate valuation of oneself. I heartily recommend to everyone to try this experience, although it is extremely difficult to be sure of having reached an authentic state of disconnection of comparisons. Perhaps we will never know if we have really been able to achieve it, even if only for an instant, but we can only carry on if we have the sincere and profound experience of having tried it with all one’s soul and having come as humanly close as possible.

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Second, with the help of my book and my piano, I have reworked the physics of sound, I have understood the logic of harmonics, the need to mathematise the air with different historical temperaments, the virtues and miseries of equal temperament and the wolf fifth. I have scrutinised the secrets of ancient and modern harmonies, the scales and chords, without at any time losing my sweet state of disconnection. I have come to dominate rationally the tonalities and modes and understand the scales as chords and the chords as scales. I have assimilated the strength of melodic harmony and the supremacy of the altered scale. I have unravelled the secrets of all the extensions, tensions, alterations and cadences. To calibrate the results, I have to underline and distinguish explicitly these two dimensions, the intellectual and musical, of my meditation. And I have to state with great clarity that the result of my meditation is difficult in the first dimension, and gratifying in the second. In a state of prideological disconnection, I have never been able to feel myself intelligent, but I have felt musically gifted. Comparing myself with myself is an impossible task for me, so the only comparison available to me is that of the loftiness of my interests and the weakness of my strength. In a state of prideological disconnection, in other words the state of disconnection from any point of reference and any comparison for my excellence or my mediocrity, there is neither. In my case, I have not managed to find any disconnected excellence or mediocrity, as such. I don’t doubt that others may execute a sincere spontaneous Nietzschean valuation, and experience this very favourable feeling of one’s own excellence. Sincerely, I don’t doubt it, and I admit that the prideological meditations of Donald Trump or Cristiano Ronaldo may give rise to a very different result. Of course, these two were less lucky than Bill Gates. A mother needs far fewer words than a philosopher and his mother said to him in time, simply: You have to give back. In any case, I would ask for the greatest sincerity and the same care for the whole world: they should meditate in a true state of epoché, or suspension of all comparison. In reality, this initial result of my meditation is twofold, and refers rather to the intellectual dimension. First, as I have just noted, it is true that I can’t repress a certain pride, a serene pride, pride before the excellence of my interests, which certainly motivate a certain pride in oneself, but in an absolutely precise sense, the only legitimate pride of the state of disconnection of all comparison: I am very proud to address myself to such lofty objects. But on the other hand, unfortunately, in the state of disconnection, I was never able to verify or feel my intelligence. In the state of disconnection, pride for my objects has not prevented me from despairing of my subject. Whenever I have formulated a hypothesis, thought of an idea, resolved a problem or developed an

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argument, I have felt, with a painful and wounding clarity that, if I were intelligent, I would have been able to formulate, grasp, resolve and draft with ease and good judgement, instead of clumsily and painfully. The more effort I put, unsuccessfully, into perceiving my intelligence, the louder resounds in my scatterbrain the terrible accusation and sour smile of Friedrich Nietzsche: ‘Weak! Resentful! How is it possible that I am so intelligent?’. It is true that to me the successful completion of a task gives me a certain satisfaction. But unfortunately, it is even truer that if I were intelligent, I could complete my tasks much quicker and much better. In contrast, the result of my musical meditation is different. Melodic and harmonic joy is a new joy. For me, it is an intellectual and sensual joy at the same time. Perhaps for this reason, in the state of disconnection, my pride in the loftiness of the object has been accompanied—​I have to say—​by a certain pride in my fluency and my expertise. It is possible that this very pleasant feeling simply constitutes a reflection of the beauty of sound; and that in my meditation, I have failed when it comes to distinguishing phenomenologically between the two things. But the fact is that, taking a slow pleasure in the simple difference in sound between the major and minor triad, or in the singularity of the progressions of the great John Coltrane (Trane Changes), I have had the luck to experience and distinguish, with great clarity, both the timbre of each of the components of the essence of the object of our research—​ emotion, own, excellence—​and its harmonic consonance. I’m not intelligent, but I have been blessed with the gift of the harmony of the world. When I was small, I believed—​without any grounds for doing so—​that I was Napoleon Bonaparte. Now, after my fundamental meditation, I possess a fundamentum inconcussum veritatis to know that I am a great composer, the Johann Sebastian Bach of the 21st Century. So much for my fundamental prideological meditation. Now I have to open the fireplace or cabin and look at the world, to calibrate the disconnected clarity with the confusion of the world. Obviously, the emergence from the cabin is not the emergence from the cave, but a return to it; the return from eidetic clarities to empirical confusion. The connection of the comparisons must be made gradually, with some care. In my case, the result is as surprising and unequivocal as the result of the meditation in a state of disconnection. It is not difficult for me to recover the mundane state and attitude, which turn upside down the neat conclusion of my prideological meditation. Now, I don’t want to forget my meditation. I don’t want my meditation to have taken place in vain. I don’t want to deceive myself. I don’t want to forget that my worldly state and attitude are the result of luck in the natural and social lottery. In fact, by nature I have little brain and higher musical capacities.

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But in this world, the natural and social lottery and conventions have always, incomprehensibly, located me in the first quartile of the former and the last decile of the latter. Despite my limitations, life and my teachers have made me believe myself to be intelligent. In all classes of contexts and places, my mathematical and philosophical capacities have always positioned themselves easily into the leading bunch of those around me and my musical capacities among those bringing up the rear. I am a child spoilt by fortune. But I don’t want to remain a slave to the psychology of the spoilt child revealed by Ortega, nor of my culpable condition as underage. I don’t want to live misled and believe that what is culture and convention is nature. Chance has gifted me not only health and well-​being, but also a context which cushions my inadequacies. And the context also crudely proclaims that I am not even capable of singing Happy Birthday. That is the reality, but I know that the truth, revealed by my meditation, is the contrary. For me, it is an astounding fact. I don’t dare say, like the character in Almodóvar’s film, that reality should be banned. But it’s undoubtedly true that reality is something very strange and not at all natural. Moreover, the introduction of posthuman improvements not only plays havoc with the lottery of life, but also perverts the planning, development and conclusions of any prideological meditation. Anxiety is the vertigo of freedom and posthumanism is the vertigo of pride. In my disconnection from any comparison, I experience in the raw my lack of brains and a delirium about my musical capabilities. Fortunately, reality is so charitable that it corrects the former; but unfortunately, also the latter. In the former case, luck and moral fortune have decided that people should look at me with respect. In the latter, bad luck obliges me to experience the contrary. But what would happen if while I carry out, laboriously, as a plebeian, my research and my meditation, half the people received an implanted intellectual chip and the other half a musical gene? In that case, after the embarrassing comparison with myself carried out in my cabin, the world would throw me into the lowest intellectual decile and the last musical centile. I will then mourn my disgrace, but I will not be able to claim justice. All that will be left to me will be to try and console myself by contemplating with pride, an impersonal pride based on solidarity, the technological intelligence of my species, which would have been capable of improving and transcending itself, and the excellence of those sharing my genus or who were of my genus, according to the state which they have reached. To my despair, I can’t find any argument that will allow me to hold that human justice, the natural and social lottery, is greater than posthuman post-​justice, which is its correction. Pride is the feeling of one’s own excellence. My basic prideological meditation makes clear that excellence does not exist. If my meditation has any scope

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beyond myself, all excellence involves, in some non-​trivial way, luck, convention and comparison. In this measurement, the basis of pride, its formal object, one’s own excellence, will not be a real but conventional or hallucinatory basis, and pride will be a pride without a cause. All individual excellence and pride appear to a large extent a social loan or gift. To my way of thinking, it is a stupefying result, but also a beautiful one: a result that is humbling, beautifully humbling, humildante, if I may use the neologism I proposed in Chapter 1. Like Don Quixote, I have always thought I knew who I was. After the destruction of pride, of Nietzscheanism, as a result of fundamental meditation, I don’t know any more. But let’s not exaggerate. Neither does it seem reasonable to think that after the disappearance of pride, I am any longer anything. After the destruction of pride, I want to explore, as the completion of this essay, the possibility of reconstructing it, even if only partially, and although it has to reappear transformed and transvalued. 5

The Transvaluation of Pride

This little prideological story on the human condition is drawing to a close. Once contemporary philosophy has shown in a thousand ways the tremendous inherited error of conceiving of the human being—​that flash between two eternities of shadows—​as a rational animal, the history of human nature and heart may be recreated in a thousand ways. I have chosen the point of view of pride due to its protean nature and presence in the most diverse circles, from the depths of hell to the heights of heaven. Other points of view will undoubtedly be more pleasant or fundamental, such as love (diligo ergo sum), anxiety (principium sapientiae timor Domini) or will (omnis volens suum velle vult). You can review the emotional history of human beings from the point of view of Homo amans, Homo tremens or Homo volens. The only thing we can be sure of is that history will be false if it presents a Homo with no mystery, however sapiens he may be; if it does not try to put forward, or at least mumble, some enigmas of the past; or if it claims to have discerned the frontiers of the soul. I have tried to show that, although it is not such a core element, the history of Homo superbus or superbiens is not lacking in relevance, at least in the part of the world in which it began with the fervour of the heroes and the sins of the angel and of woman. But that is no more than a story. The truly amazing fact is not that a narrative, yet another story, is ending, but that the history of human nature has come to its end, making way for posthuman natures. As this is a final section, its own thematic core (transvaluation) will have to appear motivated or founded in some way on previous episodes. Naturally,

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I am not capable of reproducing the contributions of the great soloists of the past. But, as it is an out-​chorus section, both the main melody and the harmonic structure of the whole has to be clearly recognised. The transvaluation or transvaluations of pride concern both old human pride and new posthuman pride. To deal with them, we have to start with the essence, the logical core or the major triad recognised before, to recall some historic and conceptual variations and see if any of them involve a certain axiological primacy for the present or chronological primacy for the future. In my opinion, the cumbersome lockdown and musical disconnection of the fundamental prideological meditation will now reveal a friendlier face and will allow us with the help of harmonic analysis to go a little further in the conceptual analysis. Like the major triad, the essential core of pride consists of three notes: feeling or emotion (genus or root), own (material object or major third) and excellence (formal object or fifth). I will leave aside the other form of pride identified from the start: the attitude of superiority and disdain. It is an ugly pride, arrogance or ordinary hubris. It plays a far from incidental role in everyday life and presents numerous variations which can be analysed and distinguished: vanity, petulance, haughtiness, conceit, airs and graces. This analysis does not interest me particularly, and ordinary pride does not offer much margin either for its transvaluation or its reharmonisation; although, as in nearly all things, it has its emotional moment. ‘There will be no one in the world | who cures the wound | left you by pride’. In any case, for the purpose of what follows, we should recall a key conclusion we came to before: mediaeval pride belongs to the first category, not the second. It is a form of authentic pride, not ordinary hubris. At the time, the two notes by which we complete the essence or original triad are the subject and mode or modality. Given that original pride coincides in the subject and material object (oneself), in the phenomenological analysis we deal with them together and distinguish the four fundamental notes, which coincides with the natural extension of the triad to the tetrad. The conceptual triad is extended to include the modality and the musical triad to include the seventh. Given that we have focused on noble pride, the natural extension of the conceptual triad is the modality of order. And given that we are starting with the major scale as a source and mother of harmony, the natural extension of the major triad is the supermajor tetrad or Maj7, with the major seventh. Perhaps the most eloquent historic moment in this respect is Zarathustra’s invocation to the sun. Despite the interplay between the major and minor modes, Richard Strauss’s drums, trumpet and organ end up resting on the king of chords. The transvaluation of pride is played in the present and future, but to address it with confidence, it is worth recalling the analyses of the past. The mediaeval

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conceptual proposal—​disordered appetite for one’s own excellence—​includes various eidetic or conceptual variations. It is now time to study its axiological and harmonic implications. The genus oscillates between emotion and desire and the mode between order and disorder. I will begin with disorder, but it is first necessary to give a small warning. The conceptual mode or modality is order and disorder. In my opinion, its natural musical correlation is in the seventh, not the third. Although the latter is the most relevant for musical modality, the seventh is not without importance. In any event, we should not be confused by the similarity of the term mode and modality. It is worth reserving the distinction between the major and minor third for the core eidetic variation of the material object of pride: the move from the I to the other or to us. The conceptual shift from order to disorder or excess has great importance for the understanding of Greek húbris, the sin of the angel, the human sin and the Faustian drive. The musical shift from the major to the minor seventh is also decisive. It converts the tonic chord into a dominant chord and the original major scale into that which is derived from its fifth note: the mixolydian mode. The variation of the proximate genus of feeling to desire also has a great tradition—​appetite (Aquinas), drive (Dyson), commitment (Tucker, Steinvorth)—​and corresponds to the alteration of the second or ninth, more or less distant from the root: b9 or #9. The chord thus acquires the unmistakeable colours of the altered dominants, inherent to minor atmospheres. Now, the original material object of the emotion of pride is oneself. Its conceptual variation takes place in two steps: the de-​individualisation (pride for another) and impersonalisation (social or institutional pride). Obviously, the third of a dominant chord can’t be altered. The third and seventh constitute the pillars of this chord, its internal tritone. The exchange of its functions gives rise to tritone substitution. The variation of the third does not take place in the dominant chord, but in the fundamental chord in which it resolves, as we will see below. But to have a correct vision of the axiological implications of these three elements, we have to first consider the missing element and examine the three on this basis. The formal object of pride is excellence. Its conceptual variations are merit and spontaneous valuation. As the fundamental meditation made clear, spontaneous valuation is impossible in the trivial, Nietzschean sense, which emphasises the isolation of others; while it is adequate in a profound, philosophical sense, according to which excellence is relative and the individual is the rule and measure of itself. It is known that the fifth is the most loyal and harmonic partner of the root and constitutes none other than the foundation of polyphony. However, in our context, in the altered dominant chords, the fifth itself is the object of a relevant alteration, as in a reduced state it is identified with the

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root of the tritone substitution and vice versa. Whatever the case, all the above considerations on conceptual variations and sound alterations pursue the objective of trying to allow the axiologically most powerful modalities from among them to break through, and allow us to respond to the original question on the transvaluation of pride. To do so, the only thing that occurs to me is to take a step to the side, in all humility, and let the eternal values act. The original sin or virtue of humans is the appetite for one’s own excellence in knowledge. The value which articulates this appetite is truth; when pulled out of shape it becomes Faustian excess and when domesticated, enlightened audacity. The prideological meditation has demonstrated that, as in all cases, excellence in knowing perhaps has something of individual achievement and bragging, but much more of a social loan or gift. ‘How is it possible that I am so intelligent?’ asks our euphoric Teutonic friend. The awareness and lucidity that, in its most radical sense, excellence is a gift, will have an undoubted moderating effect on emotion and a stimulating effect on its venerable conative variation. The transvaluation of the emotion of excellence in knowledge is the will to know and the service of truth, whether of the philosopher-​king, the titan or the child. The angel’s sin is appetite for one’s own excellence in power, which led him to want to be like God and not to subject himself. The history of the Jewish people shows, like life itself, two main reasons for the conceit of the human heart: knowledge and power. Pride initially reflects on the I, but it may be extended to the other and others. The history of Israel is presided by piety and justice. Christian humility is charity or love for one’s neighbour in God. Nietzschean fraternity is the principle that ‘the sick and ugly must perish’. Modern fraternity is love for one’s neighbours in themselves. Just as truth is the value which informs the intellectual order, justice and fraternity are the values which must inform and preside over the institutional order. The transvaluation of one’s own is the alien and the common, and the service of justice and fraternity. This service may be directed to the other or the institutions that allow the flourishing and well-​being of all, experienced and cared for as an integral part of one’s own identity and destiny. The third eternal value is beauty, which allows us to extend our vision to the material object of pride and also, finally, to account for the axiological relevance of the mode. With respect to the former, I have already noted that the material object or third of the dominant chord does not admit any alteration to its sound. However, the conceptual variation is not only unavoidable, but also the most beautiful: the de-​egolisation or shift from I to us. In fact, it is the most powerful eidetic variation from an axiological point of view, which nourishes others with force and meaning. This conceptual variation lacks its correlate in

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Chapter 13

the dominant chord, but has the correlate in the third, the chord, the scale and the whole harmony on which it is resolved and is based. In fact, the altered dominant chord leads to a new harmony, the melodic minor harmony, whose source and generator is a scale which only differs from the major in the minor third. This small change has decisive axiological implications, both conceptual and musical, and is accompanied by a subtle, almost imperceptible change, in the touch of the organ keys, as will be familiar to all those in the know. The conceptual implication is the shift from I to us, the foundation of the transvaluation of pride; and the musical implication is a harmony and a new beauty, inherent in jazz and other contemporary music, with new tonalities, chords, scales and structures. A simple example of the latter is the mixed key signature of the G melodic minor scale (one sharp and one flat) used by Béla Bartók. With respect to the mode, the transvaluation of order is not disorder, but a new combination of the two. It is disorder, improvisation and madness, but with method. My conclusion can only be simple, humble, weak and plebeian. I dedicate it, with all my love, to the great philosopher of suspicion and one of his innumerable contemporary avatars, Dr. Breisacher, an intellectual friend of the composer Adrian Leverkühn and the scourge of humanitarian pap. My conclusion is that the transvaluation of emotion is will, the transvaluation of I is us, and the transvaluation of excellence is its relativisation. The transvaluation of pride is its reharmonisation. Inherited pride is the feeling of one’s own excellence, while pride transvaluated or reharmonised by history and philosophy is the will to collective flourishing. For its part, posthuman pride or post-​pride, which is so difficult to discern for us, will probably combine transvaluation and transcendence. It will without doubt be a rational pride, knowing its own excellence, but perhaps also dedicated to collective flourishing. The heroes, titans and supermen of the past are children of the human imagination, while the heroes, titans and supermen of the future will be the children both of human science and of themselves. Perhaps they will look at our expressions of pride and our anxiety for recognition with the same tenderness with which we look at the expressions of children. They will be silicon, just as we will be dust and ashes. But perhaps they will also feel new serene and rational emotions with respect to this dust; a dust with meaning, proud and loving, from which they will have come.

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Index Adam 32, 74–​75, 79, 80, 99, 161 Adam and Eve 51, 64–​65, 80, 90, 119 angel (sin of the) 14, 16, 17, 51, 52, 55–​63, 67, 75, 77, 80, 87, 93, 108, 172, 216, 224, 225 Aquinas, Thomas 10, 14, 18, 51–​58, 61–​63, 65–​73, 76–​80, 107, 111, 119–​120, 124–​126, 130, 133–​134, 135, 141, 152, 172, 179, 190, 191, 210, 224 Aristotle 12–​13, 25, 39–​44, 46, 72, 119, 129, 130–​132, 154, 192 Augustine of Hippo 10, 14, 51, 53, 67, 69, 73, 77, 78 conceptual analysis 4, 14, 18, 19, 58, 61, 119, 168, 223 conceptual variations. See eidetic variations Dante 23, 79, 102, 160, 169, 217 Descartes, René 18, 120–​130, 133, 134–​136, 189, 192, 218 Dyson, Michael 9–​10, 15, 175–​177, 191, 224 eidetic variations 18, 64, 120, 168, 189–​204, 216, 223–​226 Eve 74, 75–​81, 88, 93, 108, 111, 179, 181 Faustus 18, 74, 79, 93, 94–​116, 200, 203, 215, 224 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 103–​116, 160, 165 greatness of soul. See magnanimity Heidegger, Martin 137, 154, 197, 218 Hesiod 29, 31, 38, 48, 49, 89 Homer 12, 17, 23–​28, 42, 49, 94, 131, 192, 215–​216 hubris  arrogance 4–​5, 71, 120, 130, 166, 181, 191, 223 Greek. See húbris intellectual 78, 80, 191 moral 18, 66–​71, 77–​78, 80, 108, 110–​ 114, 120 ordinary. See hubris, arrogance sin of the angel. See angel (sin of the)

sin of the human. See original sin, act spiritual 18, 57, 66–​71, 77, 80, 84, 86, 108, 110–​114, 120, 166, 191, 216 húbris 10, 12–​13, 17, 44–​46, 49, 68, 203, 224 Hume, David 121–​122, 129–​130, 136–​137, 189, 190, 195, 214 humility  Christian 10, 16, 19, 64, 71–​73, 130–​134, 136, 141, 144–​150, 225 Jewish 18, 82, 84, 86, 90, 91 moral 12, 13–​14, 17, 38, 44, 46, 49, 64, 71–​73, 83, 90, 92, 115, 130–​134, 135, 136, 163–​164 Husserl, Edmund 190, 194, 218 intentionality 5, 180, 192, 194–​196, 202, 203–​204 Job 63, 87–​88, 92 Kant, Immanuel 151, 197, 209–​211, 214–​215 Kolnai, Aurel 130, 192, 203 Lucifer 51, 52, 58–​59, 63, 81, 97, 104–​106, 111, 161, 172, 179, 181, 200 Machado, Antonio 19, 163–​166, 167, 172–​173, 177 magnanimity 10, 12–​13, 16, 39–​44, 72–​73, 120, 130–​134, 136, 191, 202 Mann, Thomas 103–​116, 160 Marlowe, John 95, 97, 103–​116 Milton, John 61, 77, 78–​81, 82, 100, 110, 112 Moliner, María 4–​6, 7, 9, 198 music 10, 104, 107, 137, 151, 160, 212 musical analysis 19, 176, 218–​220, 223–​226 Nietzsche, Friedrich 19, 24, 73, 82, 131, 134, 137, 138–​162, 168, 171–​172, 217, 220, 222, 224, 225 original sin  act 10, 14, 16, 18, 51, 64, 73–​78, 80, 92, 108, 210, 224, 225 state 64–​66, 68, 74, 76

234 Index Ortega, José 19, 166–​173, 189, 190, 198–​199, 202 passions 18, 45, 51, 61, 122, 123–​135, 190, 214 phenomenological or eidetic analysis 5, 159, 168, 189–​204, 212, 223 Plato 29–​30, 32–​34, 35–​39, 40, 44, 45, 46, 123, 125, 131, 168 pride  black 10, 19, 174–​177, 192 collective 17, 26, 167, 175, 180–​185 definition 4, 6, 119–​120, 121, 169, 189 duality 4–​9, 11, 12, 119, 181, 189, 204 essence 19, 67, 122–​123, 169, 189–​190, 192, 201, 203, 212, 223 formal object 170, 189, 191, 193, 197–​202, 203, 217, 223–​225 general. See hubris, spiritual intellectual 17, 88, 111–​114 LGBTIQ+​ 19, 177–​180, 192 mass 19, 167, 172, 202 material object 189, 191, 192–​197, 203, 216, 223–​226 mode or modality 120, 189, 202–​204, 223–​224, 225–​226 moral. See hubris, moral

phenomenology 122, 130, 170, 189–​ 204, 215 special. See hubris, moral spiritual. See hubris, spiritual warrior 23–​25, 27, 41–​42, 138 Prometheus 31–​34, 35, 37, 75, 99, 161 resentment. See ressentiment ressentiment 19, 140–​142, 144–​145, 152, 167, 171–​172, 202 Satan 32, 53, 59–​63, 64, 75, 81, 87, 108, 115, 157 Scheler, Max 140, 172, 190, 194 Spinoza, Baruch 18, 121–​122, 129, 135–​136, 189, 190 Steinvorth, Ulrich 14–​15, 198, 224 Tracy, Jessica 10–​12, 15, 181, 185–​187, 191, 198 transvaluation of values 19, 47, 62, 140–​144, 150, 154, 157–​159, 161, 222–​226 Tucker, Shawn 12–​14, 17, 38, 43, 224 Unamuno, Miguel de 80, 103, 163–​165, 170 Zarathustra 19, 109, 112, 151, 160–​162, 181, 212, 215, 223