Plato - The Charioteer

Plato gives many illustrations in his dialogues.  Frequently Socrates gives a word picture to describe some phenomenon or some process.  Most of the time they were obviously not meant to be taken literally, but rather they illustrate something of our human predicament.

The Charioteer is probably one of the most well-known of Socrates’ illustrations.  There are many pictures and sculptures depicting it.

Socrates compares the soul to a charioteer.  The charioteer drives a chariot with a team of two horses.  The two horses are hardly a “pair”.  One horse is white and noble.  The other is dark and unruly. The charioteer has difficulty navigating, because the noble horse tends upwards towards heaven and the unruly one is base and pulls downwards to the earthbound. 

Such is a person’s moral life. We wrestle with ourselves.  We seem to be divided into two.  Part of us strives towards what is noble and part of us strives towards what is base.

This dichotomy within us or moral war is depicted in various ways.  One pop psychology talks of super-ego, ego and id.  Super-ego or the “parent voice” tells us to be good.  The id is the untamed human nature, which is base.  We want to do what we know is not morally allowed. So, we feel the pull.  On the other hand our “white horse” pulls us upwards.

In other places Plato speaks of how humans were formed.  The mind is in a spherical container (the head).  The mind needs a body to get around. Thus, the body is formed.  The body has to have a heart, but the heart is full of passion.  As a result, the lungs are placed near the heart to draw off its heat.

Emotion should not affect reason. So, the neck is narrow and keeps the heat of the heart from reaching the mind.

Far down in the loins are the dark desires.  People must reproduce, but those bits of our equipment are placed as far as possible from the mind.  We don’t want emotion or lust to control us.

The image of the charioteer and the two horses is a similar idea.  The white horse is the part of us that is seeking what is right, true and honorable.  The dark horse is lustful and uncontrollable.

In the longer section of this illustration, which is posted below, the charioteer sees his beloved (or the Beloved).  The noble horse draws back and slows down.  The base horse snorts and paws and rushes forwards.

The noble charioteer pulls back on the reins so hard that the pair of horses fall on their haunches. The unruly horse is angry and tries to go forward, but again the charioteer pulls back on the reins.  In this way, the charioteer tames the unruly horse and develops a harmonious team of horses.

As we make our way through life we try to follow our “upwards” nature.  We strive to be noble. Well, people used to.

These days our culture exalts in excess and allowing free rein to our baser desires.  We are told that they are not base.  However, experience shows that simply giving in to every urge does not lead to happiness or success.

We must struggle with our desires and our passions.  We must use our minds to consider the consequences of our actions before we act.  It is a difficult task and our “unruly horse” makes it all the more difficult.

Socrates makes clear with this illustration that we can succeed in doing what is morally good, but it will take a lot of effort. This picture reminds me to some extent of St. Paul’s comment, “but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” Romans 7:14

Thankfully for those of us who are Christians we have the indwelling Holy Spirit who helps us in this struggle.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. 

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.  Romans 7:24, 25, 8:5, 6

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Of the nature of the soul, though her true form be ever a theme of large and more than mortal discourse, let me speak briefly, and in a figure. And let the figure be composite—a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed; the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him. [246a, 246b]

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   As I said at the beginning of this tale, I divided each soul into three—two horses and a charioteer; and one of the horses was good and the other bad: the division may remain, but I have not yet explained in what the goodness or badness of either consists, and to that I will now proceed. The right-hand horse is upright and cleanly made; he has a lofty neck and an aquiline nose; his colour is white, and his eyes dark; he is a lover of honour and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition only. The other is a crooked lumbering animal, put together anyhow; he has a short thick neck; he is flat-faced and of a dark colour, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion (Or with grey and blood-shot eyes.); the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur. Now when the charioteer beholds the vision of love, and has his whole soul warmed through sense, and is full of the prickings and ticklings of desire, the obedient steed, then as always under the government of shame, refrains from leaping on the beloved; but the other, heedless of the pricks and of the blows of the whip, plunges and runs away, giving all manner of trouble to his companion and the charioteer, whom he forces to approach the beloved and to remember the joys of love. They at first indignantly oppose him and will not be urged on to do terrible and unlawful deeds; but at last, when he persists in plaguing them, they yield and agree to do as he bids them. And now they are at the spot and behold the flashing beauty of the beloved; which when the charioteer sees, his memory is carried to the true beauty, whom he beholds in company with Modesty like an image placed upon a holy pedestal. He sees her, but he is afraid and falls backwards in adoration, and by his fall is compelled to pull back the reins with such violence as to bring both the steeds on their haunches, the one willing and unresisting, the unruly one very unwilling; and when they have gone back a little, the one is overcome with shame and wonder, and his whole soul is bathed in perspiration; the other, when the pain is over which the bridle and the fall had given him, having with difficulty taken breath, is full of wrath and reproaches, which he heaps upon the charioteer and his fellow-steed, for want of courage and manhood, declaring that they have been false to their agreement and guilty of desertion. Again they refuse, and again he urges them on, and will scarce yield to their prayer that he would wait until another time. When the appointed hour comes, they make as if they had forgotten, and he reminds them, fighting and neighing and dragging them on, until at length he on the same thoughts intent, forces them to draw near again. And when they are near he stoops his head and puts up his tail, and takes the bit in his teeth and pulls shamelessly. Then the charioteer is worse off than ever; he falls back like a racer at the barrier, and with a still more violent wrench drags the bit out of the teeth of the wild steed and covers his abusive tongue and jaws with blood, and forces his legs and haunches to the ground and punishes him sorely. And when this has happened several times and the villain has ceased from his wanton way, he is tamed and humbled, and follows the will of the charioteer, and when he sees the beautiful one he is ready to die of fear. And from that time forward the soul of the lover follows the beloved in modesty and holy fear. [253d – 254e]

Plato, Phaedrus. Trans. By Benjamin Jowett.

Release Date: October 30, 2008 [EBook #1636]
Last Updated: January 15, 2013

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1636

Accessed 26 November 2016

The Wax Tablet

How morally poor choices affect our character and ability to learn is illustrated by Plato in his dialogue the Theaetetus.[1]  In trying to explain how morally poor choices make one increasing unable to make good choices, Socrates compare a person’s mind to a block of wax or a wax tablet.

In ancient Greece teachers and students used wooden boards coated with wax as “chalkboards”. (If a computer specialist can design a program that exists only in hyper space and call it a Black Board, I guess we can be allowed to call the wax tablet a “chalkboard”.)  They used a stylus (not that thing you poke at your iPhone with, but a metal poker or pointed wooden stick) to make letters or drawings in the wax.  When the person finished writing and wished to erase the writing or drawing, they heated a piece of metal and smoothed out the wax.

As the wax got older, it was stiffer and would neither take new images or smooth over again.  At a certain point the wax had to be scraped off and replaced with newer supple wax.

If a student dropped his wax tablet on the ground, and it got covered with grit and dirt, it was impossible to clean. It would not take any new images or if it did, one could not see them.  So, again the wax would have to be scraped off and new soft, supple wax had to be put on the tablet.

Socrates says this is why it’s easier for young people to learn than older people.  Older people have “hardened wax.”  One other factor is that people engage in bad habits: drinking too much, smoking, lying, cheating, etc.  If one consistently does morally bad things, one scatters grit and dirt on one’s “wax”.  The result is that a morally bad person or a person who abuses drink and substances is unable to learn.

We may not be able to keep the “wax” from hardening due to age, but we can certainly avoid the “dung” which is often thrown onto the “wax” by our poor moral choices.

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SOCRATES: I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block of wax, which is of different sizes in different men; harder, moister, and having more or less of purity in one than another, and in some of an intermediate quality.

THEAETETUS: I see.

SOCRATES: Let us say that this tablet is a gift of Memory, the mother of the Muses; and that when we wish to remember anything which we have seen, or heard, or thought in our own minds, we hold the wax to the perceptions and thoughts, and in that material receive the impression of them as from the seal of a ring; and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we forget and do not know.”

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SOCRATES: But when the heart of any one is shaggy—a quality which the all-wise poet commends, or muddy and of impure wax, or very soft, or very hard, then there is a corresponding defect in the mind—the soft are good at learning, but apt to forget; and the hard are the reverse; the shaggy and rugged and gritty, or those who have an admixture of earth or dung in their composition, have the impressions indistinct, as also the hard, for there is no depth in them; and the soft too are indistinct, for their impressions are easily confused and effaced. Yet greater is the indistinctness when they are all jostled together in a little soul, which has no room. These are the natures which have false opinion; for when they see or hear or think of anything, they are slow in assigning the right objects to the right impressions—in their stupidity they confuse them, and are apt to see and hear and think amiss—and such men are said to be deceived in their knowledge of objects, and ignorant.

Plato, Theaetetus, Trans. Benjamin Jowett, 431, 432, 443-445

Release Date: November 17, 2008 [EBook #1726] Gutenberg.org

[New York : Modern Library, [1962]]

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[1] Plato. Theaetetus, 190e5–196c5 (follow the pagination and lineation of E.A.Duke, W.F.Hicken, W.S.M.Nicholl, D.B.Robinson, J.C.G.Strachan, edd., Platonis Opera Tomus I. )

See also http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-theaetetus/  Accessed 7 Nov 2016

What does the 2016 Election mean?

I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania was a "swing" state.  That means that if the majority, however, narrow, voted for a candidate, all of the Electoral College votes (20) go to the majority winner.

Trump won the election when he won Wisconsin with 10 Electoral College votes for that state.  He reached 276.  270 Electoral votes is enough to “clinch” the election. After that Hillary could not get the required number of electoral votes to win.  She conceded.

The situation in Pennsylvania reflects the voting throughout much of the US.  Inner city and metropolitan voters chose Hillary.  "Upstate", rural and suburban, voters chose Trump. 

The vote was very close. Trump won PA by 1.3%.  Yet he gets all 20 Electoral College votes.

Nationwide at 0520 EST Trump was ahead only 0.2% in the popular vote (50.1% Trump to 49.9% Clinton), but he had won the election.  These are the rules of engagement.

My view of the results: People are angry and scared.  They are angry about moral failings of Mrs. Clinton.  Many want no more Democratic presidency.

The narrow majority are tired of more taxes.  The narrow majority doesn't want to fund things like nearly free education and Planned Parenthood.

The narrow majority are scared of Muslim immigrants and fears them as terrorists (despite no clear proof for this). The narrow majority is sick of illegal immigration and doesn't want to pay for social services for them.  These people fear losing their jobs to illegal and other immigrants.

This narrow majority feels that America is seen as weak and the foreign policy of the US is a joke.  They want to make America great again. Mr. Trump’s comments seem to portend more of the same: more bombing.

The much of the other half of voters are sick of being kept in poverty. They want a fair chance at education or they want to support minorities and the poor to get education.

The nearly other half want fair pay for fair wages, not to be kept on a black market, which keeps owners free of legal taxation for workers. 

The election was called due to (determined by) the number of Electoral College votes, but the populace is bitterly divided. There is no consensus, and democracy runs on consensus.

President Trump will have to come up with better policies than vague statements, such as calling for ”extreme vetting” of immigrants. The procedure to become a refugee is extremely difficult and lasts more than a year, at least.  Check out the UNHCR site.  After, after you clear UNHCR hurdles as an immigrant, then you have to clear US Immigration.  All of this is done OUTSIDE the US.

Trump will have to do better than call Mexicans rapists and criminals, and think a wall will solve the problem (which he alleges Mexico will pay for). Simply driving out migrant laborers won’t harvest fields or resolve the problems.  Migrants do jobs others won’t.

It's easy to speak vaguely about these things, but to change existing policies and procedures will take acts of Congress and will not be easy.  Simply saying that he will expel all Muslims from the US is not a policy.  No one can take the rights of a citizen away without some overweening reason and evidence.  We don't wish to repeat the injustice we did to Japanese citizens in WWII.

American must be about all Americans, not only those in rural and suburban areas.  It must include everyone, even the inner city dwellers.

Whether Clinton or Trump had won, the country was bitterly divided.  People kept quoting polls showing Clinton ahead (or lately losing ground).  But if you know anything about polls, you must look at the “MoE” category (Margin of Error).  Polls only question a certain number of people in a certain place.  Depending on the number of people questioned, the poll is more or less accurate.  There is always a Margin of Error. 

In the case of this Presidential election the MoE was always something like 4% or 5%.  So, if Clinton was “ahead” by 45% to 42% for Trump, it meant that if the pollsters were wrong, it could be 40% for Clinton and 47% for Trump.

The election returns (votes) show that it is 50.1% (at the moment) for Trump and 49.9% for Clinton.  It is hardly a resounding victory.  It is the narrowest of margins.  The Electoral College procedure exists for this sort of instance, so the vote is clear.  However, almost half of the voters will feel cheated.

In 2000 President George W. Bush won the election on the Electoral College vote, though he lost the popular vote (47.9%) to former Vice President Al Gore (48.4%).  in 2004 President George W. Bush won by 50.7%.  Current Secretary of State John Kerry lost by 48.3%. Bush did slightly better than Trump.  In either case it was a “close shave”.  President George W. Bush was wise to work for consensus and to “reach across the aisle”, i.e. work with the Democrats in Congress.

America needs to pull together.  Even with a Republican Congress, it is no guarantee that President Elect Trump can get anything done in Congress.

Many Republicans refused to endorse him or even spoke against him.  Congress tends to be centrist, which also is explained by the voting.  Even if a district voted for a Republican Congressman or woman, it could be by the narrowest of margins again.

Many nasty and bitter things have been said.  As with all elections there was a lot of posturing, handwaving and mud slinging.

Capitol Hill is going to have to go back to work.   Mr. Trump has promised a lot, for instance to produce jobs for the Rust Belt.  As with most presidents, he won’t be able to keep a lot of his promises.

Let’s hope and pray that he understands how narrow his “mandate” is.  Let’s hope that he learns to take advice from his advisors and that he learns how to work with everyone.  I will certainly pray to that end.

A Terrible Freedom

A Terrible Freedom

One cannot blame even one’s own empirical character, because one is always free to do anything differently than one has done it in the past.  

Lossky claimed that this was proven just by experience.

Let us take, as a counter-example, someone who has been what we would call a righteous person. This person who has done everything that seems correct or morally laudable up until the present. Then, suddenly that same man who has been completely faithful to his family, to his wife, to his children, who had been a good member of his church and society, etc., for egotistical reasons leaves his wife, neglects his family, chases another woman, and ruins his career.[62] Lossky said that such a case is proof that one always has formal freedom. Formal freedom means that one can always theoretically make a complete about-face morally despite one’s past, empirical character, etc. Lossky held that the individual always possesses absolute freedom to choose on the theoretical level. This possibility was witnessed to by such sudden changes of moral character.[63]

On the other hand, it is true that if one is a drug addict, for instance, one does not have as much positive material freedom. Positive material freedom means that one has the actual possibility or capability to change. When one abuses one’s body with drugs, for instance, one numbs one's mind, ruins one’s body, and then is not able to do the morally good things one would like to do. Still Lossky felt that despite the limitations of positive material freedom due to such choices a substantival agent could at any time, with great effort and no doubt with the cooperation of divine grace in the positive case of going from morally culpable behavior to morally laudable behavior, make such an about-face (and if he could not his previous choices in previous incarnations or metamorphoses were to blame!).[64] A rehabilitated drug addict would be a case in point. Even as a human person, not merely a potential person like an inanimate object, but even as a sentient person, one can still reduce one’s own positive material freedom by poor moral choices.  If one chooses to abuse alcohol, for instance, one will dull one’s intelligence, etc. and that will limit one’s positive material freedom. One will still retain one’s formal freedom, one could still say, "No, I will turn away from the bottle." However, previous choices do still limit one’s positive material freedom. 

Between Fideism and Dogmatic Rationalism: The place of Nicholas O. Lossky in the legacy of Silver Age Russian religious philosophy. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Institute of Philosophy, Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain), Belgium), 188, 189.

As I studied the philosophy of Nicholas Onufrievich Lossky while I was preparing my doctoral dissertation, I came across an idea which frightens me deep into the core of my being even to this day.

I doubt Lossky would have seen it the same way, but his idea of “formal freedom” has always frightened me.  As the leading quote, taken from my dissertation shows, any man can at any time make a complete moral about-face.

Perhaps this still seem banal.  However, imagine that you do a complete moral about-face. What would that look like?

Lossky gives the example of the “righteous” man, perhaps morally virtuous would be a better moniker, but he has in mind a good Christian gentleman, perhaps even a scholar.  That first instance for me is chilling. “I could be that man!” is one possible, reasonable thought.  Another is: “Except for the grace of God, there go I!” It might be instructive to know that Lossky spent most of his career teaching in a Women’s College.

We would like to think that our good habits (works?) are enough to keep us safe from such a moral about-face.  “I read my Bible every day. I pray. I go to church.  I’m in an accountability group.”  All of these things are good.  All of these things can strengthen one’s moral resolve, but none are sufficient to stop the possible moral about-face.  No, not one.

“Why not?”, you might reasonably object. Because we never lose our ability as free moral agents to choose evil.  It might be less likely, but it’s not impossible.  Any person at any time can do a complete moral about-face.

Lossky demonstrates the inability of a person like a drug addict to make a positive moral about-face.  Years of abuse dull the ability of the body and mind to make this choice.  However, if such a person takes a small step in the right direction, it’s possible to make a moral about-face, with the help of many people.

Bad habits limit positive material freedom, as Lossky calls it.  Positive material freedom means the ability one has practically in this world in this life right now to effect a moral change.  The limits of positive material freedom seem obvious to us.

However, we’re tempted to try to deduce a logical contra:

If bad choices and bad living lead to less positive material freedom, then surely good living and consistent good choices will lead to more positive material freedom AND to being free from the possibility of (or reasonably free from) making a negative moral about-face.

This, though, is a fallacious conclusion.  While making good moral choices and living a good moral life (keeping one’s word, honouring one’s vows, being a good parent, being a good spouse, being faithful…) does lead to more positive material freedom than if one were leading a dissolute life, it is no guarantee that one will not make the sudden, seemingly inexplicable negative moral about-face.

Ultimately, this is because we are free.  We will always remain free moral agents.  God will not force us to do good. Surely doing your moral “push-ups” will make you strong, but they are no guarantee. 

Everyone every day every time they are faced with poor choices must decide freely to choose the wise and good choice.

This is a terrible freedom.

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[62] Cf. Воспоминания (Vospominaniia [Memoirs]), passim and Lossky, N.O., “Can a Religious Philosophy be Scientific?”, Hibbert Journal Vol. LI, Oct. 1952- July 1953, pp. 213 ff.

[63] See the article Философия Н. О. Лосского и квантовая механика (Filosofiia N.O. Losskogo i kvantovaia mehanika [The philosophy of N.O. Lossky and quantum mechanics]) <http://exciton.narod.ru/losskii.htm> (16 February 2004) by Nenashev for an example of how one modern Russian physicist attempts to show how Lossky’s views of positive material freedom can resolve dilemmas of quantum mechanics.

[64] See Lossky, N.O. Freedom of the Will Trans. By Natalie Duddington. London: Williams & Norgate Ltd., 1932, esp. “The Slavery of Man”, pp. 136 ff.