It's All in Your Mind

I read the following article from Runners World with interest. I have to admit, my initial reaction was a bit smug. The article follows the age old, "mind over matter," or as the article says it, running is "90% mental." The writer quotes Lore of Running author Tim Noakes's claim that the brain is the "central governor" of the body, keeping it from over-exerting, or in runner parlance, performing, and thus damaging itself. I immediately jumped on the tendency for the "mind over matter" cliche to confuse the mind with the brain. Then, though the article sometimes leaned in that direction, arguing that physical fatigue might be overcome with mental fortitude, I realized my own perceptions (I'm going sidestep words such as preconceptions or prejudices) were leading me to miss the point. Yes, the brain is not the mind--because it is part of the body. It is a muscle. Thus, mind over matter is mind over brain. That might be worth trying. 


http://www.runnersworld.com/rt-web-exclusive/mind-over-matter

Gorgias says, "Nothing Exits."

"Nothing exists. If anything existed, we couldn't know it. If we could know it ,we couldn't communicate it."

Gorgias's oft repeated statement on reality (ironic? satirical? even whimsical?) has either tickled the fancy of the post-structuralist inclined, or thoroughly irritated those more devoted to analytical philosophy, IE those who like to think of themselves as logical, what William James refers to as "hard-headed" thinkers. (Might we, in our own whimsical mood, refer to these two entrenched camps as the army of the right-brained and the army of the left-brained?) It is possible, however, that this claim can make sense, and not simply be a mystic expression of an inexpressible metaphysics--or perhaps a bit of overly clever wordplay.

In order to take the slight of hand out of Gorgias's playful denial of the real, I'm going to go back to something that confused me for a long time listening to both Plato and Aristotle, the reference in each of the monad. This term is significant enough that it has its own listing in the Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10447b.htm.   And yes, I start with the Catholic Encyclopedia to emphasize how the term has been reified (syntactical deification; or perhaps a better word, hypostasize) in scholasticism. Eventually, after the word popped up without explication more times than I was comfortable with, started to feel like I might have some inkling of what the term might be getting at when I listened to Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics. Here he talks about the monad and the duad. Simple one and two? I might accept that. It wasn't that doing so didn't make sense, it was that it didn't make enough sense. Then, Aristotle throws in a triad, but not simply a triad, a triangle. He'd already talked about how the duad was more than the two because it couldn't be simply divided into two monads since there is only one monad.The only way his discussion worked, that is, wasn't gibberish, was if the monad, rather than a number, is a point, the duad a line, and the triad a triangle.

A point has no space. When we draw a dot, we are simply making an "imitation" of what isn't there. A line can be divided, but doing so doesn't make the line two monads. The remainder stays a duad--and, remains unmeasurable. Then we come to the triad, the beginning, or basis of the physical world. It would be easier to see this as three dimensions. That, however, doesn't work out, since a line only has one dimension, and a point, no dimension at all.

Here is how this all connects to Gorgias: Since a monad (or a duad for that matter) does not actually exist, I.E. does not take up dimensional space, it cannot be known, since our senses cannot detect it. It can be represented, but since the representation does not refer to the actual, which doesn't exit anyway, it cannot be communicated. Certainly, something we refer to as a point or a line can be communicated. But, just as a dot "." on a screen or page is not actually a point, but only the symbol of a point, that symbol, no more than our words, can actually communicate what isn't there.

I admit, I'm not entirely sure how the triangle fits here, though Aristotle finds the triangle significant, since the 90 degree angle of a right triangle is the constant whereby squares are constructed, which he says makes triangles a first principle.

I also admit that this is an entirely off the wall interpretation, one that is no more explicit in Aristotle than in Gorgias. But, it works. Until someone else can come up with an interpretation of Gorgias's maxim that works better, I'll go with it.

The full text, at least Sextus's version, can be found at https://users.wfu.edu/zulick/300/gorgias/negative.html (Thank you Dr. Zulick. Also see http://rhetoricalgoddess.wikia.com/wiki/Rhetoricalgoddess_Wiki) Sextus's outline of Gorgias's argument is reminiscent of so many arguments about the one and the many that the sophists loved. Zeno's Arrow, designed to show how preposterous the other side's argument was, is just the best known. Plato's Parmenides and Euthydemus are examples of this mode of argumentation. As Plato implies in Euthydemus, such sophism shouldn't be taken seriously because one is never sure what the sophist actually believes, or is just saying to "make the worse case the better." Personally, I'm drawn to lines 83 through 86, and particularly this statement, "is is not possible to say that logos has substance in the way visible and audible things have," because this supports my argument, at least tangentially.


   

George Santayana and the "Pathetic Fallacy"

In The Life Of Reason (Ch 6), Santayana talks about the “pathetic fallacy.” Though this term might sound familiar to rhetoricians, he means something different from the use of pathos as a means of persuasion. For Santayana, the pathetic fallacy is the tendency to attribute to objects the emotions we feel when we observe those objects. For instance, an angry God in a dangerous world, or a loving God in a peaceful world; lambs as innocent, wolves as evil. (Note that this pathetic attribution to wolves is Medieval, while the modern pathetic attribution to wolves sees them as free spirits.

Santayana goes on to argue that there are limited moments when the pathetic fallacy is not a fallacy at all. His first example is that of cattle, one of which might start in fear, causing the heard to share that emotion. The result is a stamped. It matters not to the pathetic if there is an actual danger, simply that all share similar emotions. The response of the herd is to the first animal who started, not to the danger. 

The herd example may be all too apt, since Santayana goes on to argue that “leaders” (quotation marks are mine; the reason will soon be evident) are those who have learned to read the emotions of others and thus lead them, or control their actions. It is evident that the leader may not necessarily share those emotions, which leads to the possibility of the demagogue, the individual who has learned to sway the heard to his own ends, ends that may not necessarily benefit the heard. 

According to Santayana, the leader/demagogue, may control the actions of his followers without changing their consciousness.. As yet, I’m unsure what "consciousness" means to Santayana, though the term is in some ways, akin to Socrates's ideas of the soul. There is a synergy between Santayana's complaints about "leaders" and Socrates’s complaint about the great orators of Athens. Though Pericles is held up as an example of a great orator by others in the dialogues, Socrates asks whether he left the Athenian people any better than he found them. This is the Socratic test of politicians, orators, and sophists: did they leave the people better than he found them? To put this question in Santayana’s terms, did they change the people’s consciousness, or only their actions?

As I mull this question I am reminded of Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?” I’ve asked students in theory classes to read this essay, and they’ve invariably had positive reactions. Yet, it’s always left me troubled. Looking at it now I see Kant's defense of the use of pathetic by leader/demagogues. Note Kant’s praise of Frederick, who he admires for say, “Argue as much as you like, and about what you like, but obey!" In Kant’s enlightened age, we see a leader who has no wish to have anything to do
with his people’s consciousness, but only their actions.

I have to admit, I dislike the idea of a modern state playing with the consciousness of a people, trying to leave them better through legislating morality. My dislike simply leads me back to Socrates, who continually shied away from a public (political) life. However, seeing his life solely as a contemplative life simply ignores the evidence provided by the dialogues—that Socrates was in constant interaction with others. Might we go as far as to identify dialectic as dialogue that explicitly seeks to connect to the consciousness of another?

Kant's ideal state assumes that there is no relation between consciousness and action, that argument can remain out of the public domain. Socrates's argument implies that if the two are not intertwined, one will become stunted.  

Critias's Metaphor of a Painting

In the dialogue bearing his name, Critias asks his listeners indulgence, IE not to be too critical of the veracity of the story he is about to tell. He tells his readers that he's going to be talking about men, not the gods. Because the topic is familiar to his hearers, he is concerned that they will be overly critical. It's easier, he argues, to talk about things that are unfamiliar; then, your hearers are more open to your authority. He gives a similar, though alternative metaphor of painting, to the one Socrates gives in Phaedrus.

Listening to this got me wondering what this request by Critias says about Plato's writing. When he writes about chariots ascending to the heavens, are we supposed to accept his words, since these are unfamiliar ideas? When he writes about Socrates, does he take more care because he knows his readers (at least his readers at the time) knew the man as well as he? Critias is a later dialogue. Some suspect one of the last if not the last, hence unfinished. Is this request by Critias a commentary on his own writing? Plato was such a careful writer we have to at least suspect that he was aware of how it might function as a commentary on his own work.

CRITIAS: “All that is said by any of us can only be imitation and representation. Or if we consider the likeness which painters make of bodies divine and heavenly, and the different degrees of gratification with which the eye of the spectator receives them, we shall see that we are satisfied with the artist who is able to any degree to imitate the earth and its mountains, and the rivers, and the woods, and the universe, and the things that are and move therein, and further, that knowing nothing precise about such matters, we do not examine or analyze the painting; all that is requires is a sort of indistinct and deceptive mode of shadowing them forth. Btu when a person endeavours to paint the human form we are quick at fining out defects, and our familiar knowledge makes us severe judges of any one who does nor render every point of similarity. And we may observe the same thing to happen in discourse; we are satisfied with a picture of diving and heavenly things which has very little likeness to them; but we are more precise in our criticism of mortal and human things. Wherefore if  the moment of speaking I cannot suitably express my meaning, you must excuse me, considering that to form approved likenesses of human things is the reverse of easy.”

Aristotle's Metaphysics

I'm working my way through the Metaphysics right now, and I'm struck by how seldom Aristotle discusses what we normally think of as metaphysics, at least after reviewing pre-Socratic philosophers' ideas about the substance of the universe (fire, water, air). I listened to Chapter Six this morning. Though Aristotle bandies about words such as substance, essence, universal, when he moves to examples, he's more likely to use man and animal, Socrates and musical, than he is the Sun, one of the few examples he brings forward as universal. Even here, he seems more concerned with how we categorize the sun. He argues that if the sun came out at night, it would still be the sun. That's such an ironic argument, I'm still not sure what to make of it.

I've reached Chapter Eleven (in McMahon, who has an idiosyncratic chaptering; other translators number this chapter Twelve). Aristotle starts out with, "That, indeed, Wisdom is a certain science conversant about first principles is evident from the early portions of this work." He gives us notice that the previous chapters have set the stage for this and subsequent chapters. Looking back over those first ten chapters (I know, the math doesn't add up) they focused on two tasks: first, reviewing what others have said, and second, establishing firm definitions for Aristotle's terms, definitions he will now use to develop his metaphysics.

The Iliad, Theology and Fate

Recently finished listening to The Iliad. Some immediate thoughts:

Though the gods appear regularly throughout The Iliad, there's little or no theology. But then, there isn't much theology in the Pentateuch either. Most of the theology comes later in the Bible. One concern both have is the relationship between the divine and the human. In both, the divine has commitments to humans that is both corporal and individual. In both, those relationships are built on a parenthood, though in radically different ways, one pantheistic and the other monotheistic. One l, physical, the other metaphorical. 

Those relationships do much to explain the arbitrariness of life and fate as conceived in both. In The Iliad, the Greeks and the Trojans prevail as a result of interference of the gods in the actions of men. The various gods have chosen sides, and the war goes one way and then the other depending on which god interferes at that moment--often which god is allowed to interfere by Jove. More often than not, which individuals and which side prevails has little to do with the ethos/virtue of the humans involved, but whether they are progeny or not. In The Bible, the fate of the Israelites is based on communal obedience. That holds true for individuals as well (Adam, David). However, this is not a straight reward system. Some individuals, (Jonah, Gideon) do not initially obey God. In fact, some actually head in the opposite direction (Paul), which can make the God of The Bible appear as capricious as the gods of the Greeks.

The first two chapters of Mimesis by Aurbach sheds some light on the differences between the way the two documents portray reality. I need to go back and reread those chapters.

The place of fate in the lives of the Greeks and Trojans is interesting, particularly for Achilles. He is told he is fated to die, but become legendary, if he kills Hector as revenge for the death of Patroclus, but live a long and prosperous life if he chooses to let it go. Thus, his fate does not appear preordained, but to depend on choice. However, his character as revealed in The Illiad, which emphasizes his stubborn anger, suggests that though he might be given two options, he only has one choice, the one that is in line with his ethos.    

Shrine for a Runner

Running down a coastal road south of Naples I came across this shrine. I see this sort of thing in Texas, but this one seemed so much more personal, perhaps because this was a shrine for a runner. I have no idea what happened, how he died, who remembered him and why they cared so much they wanted to leave this for me to see. I'm grateful that they did. I'm grateful for his life, for how full of life he appears to be in this picture. Good running, my friend.