A Few Thoughts on Form

These reflections might not all be perfectly lucid or sound; they are just reflections. No cohesive or systematic program of thought went into any of this, just a flow of thought about logical possibilities. Later, when I am able to devote more of my time explicitly to texts and research, I will hopefully provide much more in-depth thought on these subjects, and more. Critical commentary welcome below.

Note: What follows applies principally to the forms of sensible things. Beings such as angels are a discussion of their own.

Form, in Plato, is the intelligible identity and the reality of a things. A thing is not its form; but its reality, its actuality, its whatness, is indeed its form. A thing is distinct from that which makes it what it is; it is distinct from its whatness. Its whatness, its form, is thus distinct from itself; it is separate. Is it a mistake to interpret Plato's theory of forms as a theory of “two worlds”? Must the separation of form imply a distinct “world” of intelligibles parallel to the world of sensibles? Or does separation mean anything more than the distinction between a thing and its essence? In sensible things, even St. Thomas admits this distinction, without feeling the need to hypostasize the essence or form of a thing. This is St. Thomas' (and Aristotle's before him) critique of Plato, that the forms seem to acquire the status of individual hypostases. Perhaps this is an easy mistake to make, in interpreting Plato. We note, further, that Thomas himself had very little direct experience of Plato's texts. Perhaps, however, if he himself had read the dialogues of Plato, he might have approved of Plato's intuitive grasp of the distinction between things and their forms or essences; he might also have very much approved of Plato's insistence that this form or essence constitutes the very reality of the thing itself, more so than its matter constitutes this reality – and more, perhaps, than the composite itself of form and matter?

This last thing remains to be settled in my mind: Which is more real: form, or the composite of form and matter? In an absolute sense, to be sure, the mode in which anything exists as purely formal, that is, as Pure Act, is more real than the mode in which it exists as composite; i.e. its existence in the mind of God is, simpliciter, more real than its existence in itself as composite. (This is not to exclude other senses, secundum quid, in which the composite existence is more real; but that is for another discussion.) The doctrine of the divine ideas is St. Thomas' appropriation of the Platonic theory of forms. The divine ideas are the formal exemplars of things, as they are conceived in the divine intellect. Their existence in the divine intellect is the absolute condition of their existence and intelligibility as composite beings, the condition of their entire being – in themselves and in the intellects of non-divine beings. They exist as composites of form and matter – or in the case of immaterial substances such as angels, of essence and existence (either way, composites of act and potency) – only because they exist in the first place as purely formal, or purely actual, in the mind of God. The Platonic doctrine of form is really based on an intuition of the absolute priority of actuality, which is a priority admitted by both Aristotle and Thomas. This absolute priority of actuality is the condition for all posterior modes of existence – and modes of intelligibility.

Therefore, Plato asserts that the reality of things, namely their form or essence, is something divine. It is, in a sense, other-worldly – not to literally posit a “two-world” theory of forms, but rather drawing attention to the transcendence of form that is, at the same time, immanent in things. For anything to be real is for it to participate in something transcendent and divine, something more than the mere composition of form and matter that makes it to be “this thing.” To attend to the most real reality of a thing, one would do better to attend not merely to what constitutes it as this or that individual thing, but to what constitutes it as this kind of thing; and even better, one would attend to the relation which it bears, not merely to the principles of its own inner constitution, but to the divine reality which is its exemplar. There is here a process of ascent: first one perceives the thing in its own individuality, its existence as a composite, a “this” or a “that.” Second, one abstracts from the phantasm of this object its intelligible form, by means of the agent intellect, thereby distinguishing it in kind from all other kinds. Thirdly, one rises even from this form, the intelligible species, to the divine species of which it is but a participation and a reflection. In this threefold process, one ultimately knows God, in whom things exist in the most real way, absolutely and unconditionally, through the limited and conditioned existences of things which one encounters in the world of perception. One discovers the divinity of pure form, pure actuality, which is itself the very reality and condition of all composite things, as well as of the understanding of such things.

But the composition of form and matter – or existence and essence, or any act and potency – is not the composition of God with things. For God does not enter into composition; He is not the actuality of any composite. St. Thomas perceived another danger in the Platonic account as he understood it, namely that it entailed a certain pantheism. But could not one avoid this, while maintaining the essential elements of the theory of forms? St. Thomas himself admits of many modes of existence, even of a single thing. As a composite being, it exists in a state of actuality, but an actuality which is the act of some potency (hence its composition). Or it may exist in a state of potency in the unformed matter of which it is partly composed, along with form; it is form which bestows actuality upon this matter, thereby bringing about its actual composite existence. But there is also a mode of existence which is actual – not the act of any potency, but purely actual and uncomposed. This is the mode of existence which belongs to God. In this mode, all beings exist as ideas in the divine intellect. This is a purely formal mode of existence. In the coming to be of a composite mode of existence, God, or God's idea, does not enter into composition with matter, but He impresses His idea upon matter as a seal upon wax, such that the form received by the wax is an image of the divine idea itself. The potential existence of that being in matter is actualized by the reception of a form from the stamp of a divine idea. There is almost some truth to the claim that the form in the wax is the form of the seal; it is at least its image. Indeed, one would say that the pattern of the seal is the same pattern received in the wax. One does not distinguish the pattern of a patterned thing – in the patterned thing – from the pattern “itself by itself,” even if the seal is a separate entity from the formed wax. There is neither a straightforward sameness nor a straightforward separation from the two things, but a relationship of image to the paradigm; and the paradigm is both transcendent and immanent to its images.

Form, then, comes to refer to both the paradigm and the image of the paradigm which inheres in the composite being(s), not by a mere equivocation, but by a real analogy. The richness, and perhaps the very ambiguity, of Plato's doctrine of form lies in the simultaneous (and perhaps confused?) awareness of the analogy of paradigm and image. It is an awareness which, though perhaps confused, is quite necessary to the philosopher: that there is a Unity responsible for the commonality of many. The philosopher knows by abstraction a commonality amidst multiplicity, a form or a species of many composite individuals. It is a common pattern which they all follow, a nature which gives them their very reality. It strikes the eye of his mind with such a force that it almost seems more real than they, for it is their very meaning – it is their reality. The more he is aware of it, the more mysterious does it seem, the more intensive is its being, the more powerful is its influence; it seems something divine. At this point the attention of the mind is less to the things of his experience than to the unity of form that makes them what they are. Certainly, things in his experience have led him on this voyage of discovery, but what he has discovered is not them, but a reality that transcends them. He is here witnessing the very impression of the divine seal upon things, the relationship of image to paradigm. By attending ever so closely to the meaning and mystery of things, it is as if he has been sucked in to the mystery to gaze upon the startling, blinding light that casts all images. Form, as the image of a paradigm, is the portal through which the paradigm itself may be glimpsed; and the whole symphony of earthly forms together, a magnificent symbol by which the terrifying Unity of all Form is simultaneously concealed and revealed. Through form-as-image, we know the God who is pure form-as-paradigm, who is present in all and absolutely beyond all things.

These reflections have not been systematic. They have just been a train of thought. The hope is to arrive at a conception of form that unifies, or harmonizes, the Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions. Plato's conception of form need not be a hypostasized version of form, such that each among the multitude of forms acquires its own individuality; though he rightly emphasizes the separateness and distinction between form and the formed: the one a unity and the other a multiplicity of composite individuals. Form is accordingly something transcendent, because it is a paradigm distinct from all its instances; it is also something immanent because it is a paradigm that is realized – in only a participated fashion – in all its instances. (What I mean by “a participated fashion” I hope to explain in a later post.) Whereas Plato emphasizes the transcendence of form, though by no means prescinding from its immanence, Aristotle explicitly emphasizes its immanence, and the necessity of attending to the particular in order to gain true knowledge. After all, abstraction is only from particulars; knowledge begins from sensation. Form is encountered first in composition, individuated by matter. The grasping of intelligible form begins with sensible form, but is itself ordered to the contemplation of subsistent Being Itself.

Plato and Platonism in the Philosophy Curriculum

Plato, from the "School of Athens" by Raphael

I have done much thinking recently on the place and importance of Plato and the Platonic tradition in courses on the history of philosophy. At most Catholic, liberal arts institutions, as far as I can tell, the philosophy of Plato is somewhat sidelined: Plato is read as a handy and thought-provoking introduction to the perennial tradition, as the philosopher who gets us asking the right questions, the profound questions, and who gives us a first attempt at the right answers - but who, nonetheless, fell short of the right answers. Plato's answers, his positive philosophical accounts of the world and human nature, are given an initial cursory consideration and then dismissed as a good but ultimately inadequate attempt at getting to the truth of things. 

Enter Aristotle, the Philosopher himself, who has all the answers to Plato's questions, and the corrections to Plato's answers. We read Aristotle as our primary teacher; we identify ourselves first and foremost as Aristotle's disciples; Aristotle is, for us, the dominating influence on the Catholic Thomist philosophy which we likewise claim as our own. Plato seems to be all but forgotten. We may fondly and condescendingly remember the days in Freshman year when we read his dialogues to discover the fundamental questions of philosophy; or we remember the naively esoteric, imprecise, and unsystematic answers which he attempted to give, in order  to know, by contrast with them, the more mature and reasonable solutions of Aristotle and St. Thomas. Plato's body of thought, considered on its own merits, is deemed finally wrong, incomplete, and lacking in systematic unity.

I submit that this is a rather unjust way to read Plato, as the brave but somewhat naive philosopher whose endeavors would later be surpassed by his successors. On the contrary, Plato' positive insights - not just his questions - deserve a more serious consideration, and often hit upon nobler and profounder truths of philosophy than many Aristotelian scholastics give him credit for. Despite the possible imprecision of their formulation, the Platonic doctrines of form, participation, of the soul and its embodiment, as well as the doctrines of love and the nature of philosophy in general, should be read for their profound hidden truths and the inner "spirit" which characterizes them. Hidden in these doctrines is the conception of philosophy as an inherently mystical and even religious pursuit - this is at least its trajectory. The pursuit of wisdom, which is the knowledge of the supreme Good, is much more than a scientific or academic specialization, but a spiritual transformation of the whole man, who detaches himself from what is merely partial in the realm of being, and becomes one with the whole, with the most universal, with what is unqualifiedly the best and noblest. Plato even described the seeds of an entire ascetical way of life that conduces to this mystical ascent to the Good. Likely drawing much influence from ancient Egyptian religious sources, Plato conceives of the philosophic life as a rite of purification by spiritual death and rebirth, in preparation for the final death after which one is free to gaze upon the universal truth of things completely unimpeded. Philosophic education is an education of the whole man, not something partial and constricted, but something which gradually opens the man to the actual intelligible and all-encompassing universality of Beauty or the Good.

Furthermore, Plato's thought has indeed given rise to a number of coherent "systems" of thought (though "system" is a dangerous word) in the Neoplatonic schools. Granted, these various systems do not always agree with one another; but this is true of any variety of offshoots from an original intellectual branch of thought - even that of Aristotle or St. Thomas. The ambiguity of the original master is not necessarily a condemnation of him; it may be a sign of the richness and inexhaustibility of this thought in the first place. (Sometimes, to be sure, there is an ambiguity which is almost deliberately non-committal, an ambiguity which is guilty of shying away from the truth; but this is not always the case. While, on the one hand, the philosopher should certainly not indulge in such muddiness of thought, nor, on the other hand, should he overrate clarity and distinction of thought, as is characteristic of the Cartesian rationalist.) Moreover, even in spite of the disagreement of Plato's many disciples, there are profound truths to be learnt from all of them, individually and as a group. To read Plato well, one must also be acquainted with his disciples and commentators - among whom Aristotle himself is in fact included! - so as to comprehend and penetrate the depth, riches, and yes, even the "systematic" unity of his teaching (again employing the term "systematic" with some reservation). The mark of the Neoplatonists was their inclination to organization, rooted in an intimate familiarity with the original texts of Plato. Though perhaps less so with Plotinus, who is described as the "father of Neoplatonism," his disciples, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, and Damascius were great organizers; philosophy, for them, was very much a science, as well as a quasi rite of transformation. This tendency to organize and systematize would have an immense influence on the later medieval scholastic period, in which the Summa would become one of the predominant forms of philosophical and theological composition.

Aristotle

In this vein, I think there is a serious case to be made for a harmony rather than the conventional dichotomy between the thought of Plato and Aristotle. In the famous painting by Raphael of the School of Athens, Plato is depicted as gesturing towards the heavens, while Aristotle points to the earth, signifying the loftiness and almost other-worldliness of Plato's philosophy in contrast to Aristotle's rootedness in the earth and sensible reality. There is indeed a contrast between emphases here; but I would put forward that these two figures represent two necessary elements of philosophy as a whole: philosophy has an upward trajectory toward the heaven of divine Ideas, but it discovers these Ideas only in their earthly reflection, which is the form identified by Aristotle as one of the principles of natural beings. The mystical direction of philosophy is preserved by a necessary element of Platonism, and the grounded, "down-to-earth" character of Aristotelianism is necessary for keeping this Platonism in touch with reality. I think it would not be unfair to say that, ultimately, one cannot be a good philosopher without being a Platonist, nor a good Platonist without being an Aristotelian. Moreover, it would be simply naive to read Aristotle while ignoring the evidently Platonic and upward trajectory of even his philosophy, which is exemplified in the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, where he defines the essence of happiness as the philosophic contemplation of the best and noblest things. This is not far off from Plato's own conception of wisdom, which is the contemplation of the supreme form of the Good. 

Again along similar lines, I think there is a case to be made for the heavy influence of Platonic thought on St. Thomas Aquinas. Much of this influence was certainly unknown to himself, but St. Thomas was a devoted disciple of St. Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who were unabashed Platonists; and Thomas himself later in life became well-acquainted with a couple of crucial texts of Neoplatonism, namely the Liber de Causis by an anonymous author (whom most at the time thought to be Aristotle, but Thomas himself showed otherwise), and also the Elements of Theology of Proclus. Too often we suppose that St. Thomas as a philosopher was simply an Aristotelian; but in fact, as Josef Pieper argues, it is impossible to situate the Angelic Doctor within one single and exclusive school of thought. St. Thomas was a synthesizer, in the best sense, of a multitude of traditions which he inherited from many different sources. Certainly, St. Thomas played a large role in bringing Aristotle to the table, in the context of a medieval academic world which was perhaps more influenced by Platonism at the time; but St. Thomas was no outsider to his time, and it is mistaken to suppose that the primary struggle of that period in the history of philosophy was between Platonism and Aristotelianism as competing philosophies. St. Thomas is proof, not of the competition between them, but of their wonderful compatibility.

In short, I think that the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, developed in the doctrine of St. Thomas, yields an important and profound insight into the nature and direction of the world, principally its incarnational character: divine forms making themselves present and known in sensible, material beings. The trajectory of philosophy is towards the divine, and this is only completed and fulfilled finally by something supernatural: the self-revelation of God. But God reveals Himself in the flesh, that is, in Jesus Christ. For Christians especially, it is important therefore to maintain a visionary disposition that is ever looking for God, but looking at things in the world; and it is precisely such a disposition that I think emerges from the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle together. The disposition of soul that such a philosophy fosters is precisely what is needed for the true reception and welcoming of the Word of God, who became flesh.

I do not claim to have all the solutions to the questions of how Plato and Aristotle and St. Thomas harmonize together; but there is already good work being done on this question by various renowned scholars. Among such scholars are Dr. Wayne Hankey of Dalhousie University, Dr. Lloyd Gerson of the University of Toronto, Dr. Eric Perl of Loyola Marymount, and others, have written extensively on this and related subjects. Moreover, there is a whole host of other recent publications which delve into these questions, which I hope to utilize in my own researches. This blog will hopefully include a slow record of my own eventual and gradual discoveries...

An Education in Beauty

Socrates and Diotima

These words of the prophetess, Diotima of Mantineia, to the young Socrates, adequately describe what I think belongs to the philosophic education as such: more than an academic specialization, but a formation of the whole man, so that his nature is gradually fulfilled by an ever greater union with the universal form of Beauty itself. True education leads (educare) the whole man from the mere partial messiness and indeterminacy of earthly beauty, and raises him up unto the perception of the absolute Beauty which gives itself to all earthly beauties. This is not merely an education of the mind, but of the heart also; not only a progression in knowledge, but a journey of love. The philosopher is not a wise man, Socrates points out in the Phaedrus, but a lover and a seeker of Wisdom - and indeed, of Beauty. The journey, the pursuit, the gradual taking of possession, is described in this wonderful passage from the Symposium, which I think ought to be taken as a model for all programs of liberal education. 

"For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only-out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention:  

"He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)-a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and-foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates," said the stranger of Mantineia, "is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible-you only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty-the divine beauty, I mean, pure and dear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life-thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?"  (Symposium, 210a-212a)

About Me... and things more important

My Alma Mater: Thomas Aquinas College, in Santa Paula, California

I am a recent graduate of Thomas Aquinas College, where I studied philosophy, theology, and the liberal arts and sciences for four years, and received a Bachelor of Art's Degree in Liberal Arts. I wrote my Bachelor's thesis on the subject of liturgical symbolism, from the point of view of Neoplatonic and Thomistic philosophy. I am currently in the midst of preparations for moving across the Atlantic to Europe in the fall, where I will be studying for a Master's degree in philosophy at the Katholiecke Universiteit Leuven, in Belgium - provided that everything goes according to plan. I hope eventually to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy (or theology?), settle down to teach at a university, do an amount of research and publication, raise a Catholic family, and have a small farm.

Where I'm headed.

My major, at Leuven, will be specifically in Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance philosophy, and I hope to specialize topically in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Religion. I hope to focus my historical research on the influence of Plato, Aristotle, and late antique Neoplatonism on the philosophical and theological doctrines of St. Thomas, and on medieval scholastic metaphysics generally. Topically, I am interested in mastering the metaphysics of Plato and the Neoplatonists, and in formulating a doctrine of religious symbolism on the basis of that metaphysics, especially as it relates to the Neoplatonic doctrine of theurgy - a subject which bears immense importance in the understanding of Christian liturgical worship. I am also interested in seeking out the ways in which Plato and Aristotle harmonize with each other, rather than the all-too-common focus on how they differ. 

Aside from these subjects, which I hope to pursue specifically during my time in graduate school, I have a growing scope of other interests as well, in both philosophy and theology, and liberal education in general. One goal that in many ways summarizes the entirety of my intellectual aspirations is the desire to grasp the whole of life and being: the great interconnection of all the parts of human life, the life of the whole cosmos, the many academic disciplines, the practical and fine arts, the moral virtues, and religion; the organic harmony and hierarchy of everything in its final ordering towards God. Everything is connected; all the multiplicity of existing things can be unified under the single aspect of their procession and return to the divine First Principle.

Consequently, I have other interests that are not directly academic, but which I think are very relevant to the intellectual life, and which I hope to ennoble by my intellectual concerns. I am, and have been for many years, an active classical musician. I play the piano, the organ, and several other instruments, and I have a passion for the musical traditions of the Church's sacred liturgy, especially the Gregorian Plainchant of the Roman Rite. Music is one of those avenues of contemplation which has a more evident bearing on the human experience as a whole. Music is a universal expression of human feeling and desire, a complex symbol of the harmonies and disharmonies of the human soul, and a reflection of the motion of the cosmos. I find both listening to and creating good and beautiful music to be a soul-forming, or at least soul-resting, experience. When I sit at the piano and sight-read the fugues of Bach for an hour or two, or pour out my soul in Romantic improvisations, or simply listen to a Rachmaninov concerto, it is almost like a kind of alchemy of sound; and along with the development of sound there is a corresponding movement of the soul into metaphysical realms beyond the expression of words.

Along similar lines, I have a few aspirations of recent origin that have not yet become incorporated into the practice of my life - aspirations that are not yet hobbies. Part of the dream for my life is to embed my intellect in context, so that not only is it nourished by healthy activity - whether of moral or artistic nature - but all activity itself is ennobled and ordered by right vision. What I pursue interiorly by my mind I hope to express exteriorly in a healthy diversity of activity, just as the it is only through the Logos that all things were made. In the realm of fine arts, besides music, I am something of an aspiring poet, though the muse is with me only rarely. I hope to write a novel someday too. In the practical or useful arts, I am a strong believer in the possibility of contemplation even in those arts, which can be made "finer" by a real concern for beauty even in utility. Of such activities, the agricultural arts bear a special importance, though I have not yet made it an immediate goal to practice them now (for reasons of circumstance). As a man, I hope to realize, in some degree, the human vocation of steward or priest of the earth: to tend to God's creatures and bring to fruition their inner spark of divinity, by which they glorify God through my knowledge of Him in them. Related to the agricultural arts are the culinary arts, in which I am in no degree proficient, but in which I have only recently begun to perceive the depth of meaning. So much of culture and even religion pertains to the mystery of food, its origin in the earth, and its preparation, that it seems almost worthwhile in itself to practice. In short, I have begun to realize the importance of the practical arts - and in this way they are not unlike even the fine arts - as a way of bringing into full actuality the inherent meaning of nature, its ordination to the good and true. The most practical activity is good insofar as it has this contemplative end; contemplation frees even the smallest things from superficiality.

Above, I gave a summary of all my interests that was something abstract - to see the unification and interconnection of all things under their common First Principle, from which they proceed and to which they return. Almost the concrete form of this summary of interests is the sacred liturgy of the Catholic religion itself. The liturgy is preeminently contemplative, and preeminently practical, and maintains the order between these two spheres in wonderful harmony by the sacred practice of ritual. All knowledge and all art seem to culminate in the liturgy itself, which is the pinnacle of contemplation and the summit of activity. The paradigm and archetype of how the Logos influences all spheres of life is the sacred liturgy, in which the Logos Who became flesh becomes something like flesh once again, in the sacred symbols of Christian theurgy, especially the sacraments and the Eucharist. Indeed, I can very honestly say that so many of my interests, academic and otherwise, would not have been, were it not for the treasures that I have still only begun to discover in the liturgy. It was, in a large way, the liturgy which brought all things under one ratio in my mind, namely God and His communication of Himself unto His creatures. Consequently, the liturgy will almost inevitably be central to all the work in philosophy, theology, and simply life itself, which I hope to achieve and make some sort of record of here on this blog.

This blog will likely be a record that is sometimes academic and rather impersonal, and sometimes testimonial and quite personal. I firmly believe that the intellectual life, as abstract and speculative as it is, is really quite inseparable from human experience and the concrete. Real learning cannot be divorced from real and substantial personal growth. "Alas, how terrible is wisdom, when it brings no profit to the man that's wise!" (Oedipus Rex) I hope to make my growth in wisdom overflow into all my faculties, abilities, and encounters with the world, so that it may bear lasting profit for me. Philosophy, for me, will (I hope) be something more than a mere academic specialization - it will certainly be that - but also and more importantly a whole way of life that encompasses everything in me that makes me human. Therefore, a journal of my progress in learning will necessarily also pertain to my progress in deeper personal experience. 

The Intellectual Life

This blog is largely intended to be a sort of journal of my pursuit of wisdom, and my endeavors to live the intellectual life. I intend to record here, not only the fruits of my studies, but their purpose and meaning: the meaning of the intellectual life itself, in particular that of a Catholic young man in the twenty-first century. I hope to give some of my first attention, on this blog, to defining what I mean by the intellectual life itself, and how I personally shall aspire and endeavor to live it. 

There are many aspects of the intellectual life; and since it is the life of that peculiar and freakish creature known as a man, it necessarily involves quite literally all the aspects of the life belonging to man as such. The philosopher David Hume, misguided though he was in many ways, was not at all wrong when he wrote: "Be a philosopher; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man." The intellectual life is not simply the life of a part of man, namely the intellectual part; it is the life of a whole man. To be an intellectual is not to be broken into parts, some of which are to be tended, others neglected. On the contrary, the genuine and true life of the intellect overflows into all parts of the man, informing his whole life, benefiting him in every aspect of his being. As Aristotle and the Scholastics commonly stressed, it is not merely the intellect of a man that knows; it is the man. In every act, it is the whole man that acts; and no truly human activity precludes any other human activity - the exercise of no single human faculty ought to hinder the exercise of any other.

All human action, from the loftiest contemplation, down through the practice of the moral virtues, personal and social, to the least labor performed by rough and worn hands, is perfected when it is inspired by the true apprehension of the good, the noble, the holy. It is the duty of the intellectual not merely to produce great discoveries by science or study, but to hold the true, good, beautiful, noble, and holy, ever in the eye of his mind; and because he is also a man it is his duty ever to act only in accord with what he sees, to desire the good that he knows, to seek it, to attain it, and to possess it, by only the best means that he can know. It is consequently his duty not to neglect any sphere of life that touches him as a man; for it is as a whole man that he must first of all live. The intellectual life does not disregard this, does not escape it; it is wholly rooted in the ground of real existence, with all its grime and grittiness. 

Because of its so necessary connection to life, not only must the intellectual not forget the smaller, mundaner aspects of his existence, so as to grow in perfection in even such things, but he must also cultivate his intellect itself so that it may become, not a mere tool for the formulation of concepts, propositions, and syllogisms, but a beautiful image of the Truth which is its object. The beauty of the intellectual life, the wisdom which the philosopher loves, is not something to be merely apprehended and analyzed by dry and cold calculation. Certainly the philosopher must know how to reason; but he must know more how to experience that which is the object of his pursuits. To be caught up in the abstract and the conceptual is to reduce reality to a thing of the mind, whereas the true intellectual seeks something outside of his mind, something outside of himself; he seeks ecstasy, the madness of inflamed love, an encounter with the most beautiful reality that sweeps him off his feet and lets him soar. This is life; the syllogisms of the rationalist are not life. 

At this height of contemplation, the intellectual life gives way to the act of worship. It is religious in its essential trajectory. It is a straining of the eyes towards the vision of the blindingly beautiful divine light, and of the heart towards the madness of divine love. The philosopher, in soaring to mystical ecstasy, falls also to his knees, overwhelmed by the majesty which commands his homage. In the intellectual life thus conceived, man comes face to face with his relation to God, his littleness before God.

But even in order to soar thus towards ecstasy, the philosopher must keep his feet on the ground. He lives a paradox, by staying in touch with the earth in order to fly to heaven. But it is an entirely sensible paradox, not a contradiction. Just as the man is an integral whole, though constituted with parts in hierarchical relation to each other, so is reality itself an integral whole, in which the noblest beings communicate themselves to and through the very lowest. Indeed, this is the entire reason why the intellectual must not lock himself away within the prison of his mind, but go out of himself and have a care for other men, for other creatures, for activity, for his body, for the earth. For the wisdom which he seeks has hidden itself in the smallest insect, the most mundane task, the face of a friend. Heaven, though above the earth, is hidden in the earth; one need only have the eyes, or the intellect, to see it. But one must see it precisely as it is in the earth itself. "The Kingdom of God is among us." 

The true intellectual life has no use for Cartesianism, for which matter and bodies are essentially irrelevant to the inner life of the intellect, except insofar as the intellect imposes meaning upon them. Matter is but mere extension, measurable and manipulable for arbitrarily imposed needs - and the intellect possesses complete power to arbitrate such needs, and to apply itself in measuring and manipulating matter for them. Reason has now suddenly become God: supreme arbiter of ends and means, supreme bestower of meaning and even of truth. Because its role is now to create, to make truth, to impose meaning, its value is solely practical. Knowledge is only for the sake of power over nature - this is the aim of Baconian science, the partner of Cartesian philosophy. In an attempt to deify the reason, the rationalists have fallen into utilitarianism, reducing the intellect to nothing but a mean to arbitrary, useful ends. There is no more meaning - no more goodness, truth, and beauty - intrinsic to the world, only use. This phenomenon represents a different kind of paradox: in seeking to deify the intellect - a noble aspiration, initially - by denying the real value and meaning of the world, the rationalists have accomplished nothing but a never-ending obsession with merely worldly desire and utility, with no hope of fulfillment. By denying real meaning in the world, it has affirmed the world as something meaningless. By affirming their own reason as the first cause and source of all meaning, they have denied themselves the opportunity to really know the meaning and truth of things, and they have locked themselves in a prison of never-ending desire.

The true intellectual does not deify his reason from the outset, nor does he deny the world its meaning. Rather he affirms the world so that he might eventually rise from it unto true deiformity of intellect, thereby fulfilling the deepest desire of his heart. For "all men by nature desire to know." Whereas the Cartesian-Baconian, technological philosophy finds itself denying the intrinsic value of concrete existing things, and therefore the intrinsic value of knowledge and contemplation for its own sake, the true intellectual affirms the value of the concrete, the particular, and thereby opens himself up to the delight of gazing upon the universal truth, possessing the good, resting in the beautiful. And he finds this truth, goodness, and beauty, in the very particulars which surround him in the world; whereas the merely technological man finds himself bogged down in these same particulars, with no hope of fulfilling his innermost desire for knowledge. For him, reason is everything because it is power, and power is everything because activity and utility - the manipulation of matter for arbitrary and endless desires - are everything; and everything is ultimately nothing. But for the true intellectual, activity and utility and matter and the whole world are meaningful because there is a Truth beyond them that is to be had, a Good to be enjoyed, a Beauty to be contemplated.

Much more than this is encompassed in the interests of the intellectual man; for, again, all the interests of the human being are included in his pursuit. But the modernism fathered by Descartes and Bacon, which has further degenerated in the convolutions of Kant, (Darwin?,) Hegel, Freud, and Nietzsche, offers no promise of fulfillment. Only the perennial wisdom of the Ancients, the universal tradition of mankind, embodied in nature, divine revelation, and authentic culture, can start man on the path towards knowledge. Hence, in my pursuits, I will have primary recourse to the sources of this perennial wisdom: the ancient wisdom of Plato, Aristotle, the Neoplatonists, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas, and their disciples and comrades in the quest for wisdom. (This is by no means to deny any truth or insight to the moderns. No man in the pursuit of knowledge can totally escape from the testimony of truth which he receives from nature and tradition, no matter how vehemently he seeks to distance himself from it. It is the wise man's role to sift the chaff from the wheat in the careful reading of all philosophers, to discover what little gems of wisdom and virtue might be discovered even in the folly and vice of the wayward mind. In this, I will follow the guidance and method of St. Thomas: "Do not consider who the person is who you are listening to, but whatever good he says commit to memory.") 

The fundamental philosophical orientation of this blog will be Thomist, but I am committed also to being open to as wide a range of traditions as I can become acquainted with, so long as they seem to offer a real bounty of truth. Above all, the tradition of the Catholic Church, East and West, is my tradition, my heritage, and the Magisterium is the safeguard of my intellectual development, and faith the guide to my reason.