This post will seek to analyze the major philosophical and religious themes in T.S. Elliot’s “Four Quartets”. Although most regard “The Wasteland” as his greatest work (and indeed it is one of the greatest of the 20th century), Elliot himself believed that “Four Quartets” perhaps surpassed it. Printed in its entirety in 1943, the poem is written mainly in free verse and ties in themes of the nature of time and the divine through metaphor and repetition. It is divided into four sections- Burnt Norton, East Coker, the Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding. What Elliot attempts to convey in the poem is a theory of the true nature of reality as eternal. Ultimately, this reveals a Christian and Platonic ontology which reflects Elliot’s own Anglican faith and is illustrated in the poem through religious imagery. He opens, “Time present and time past/ Are both perhaps present in time future/ And time future contained in time past. / If all time is eternally present/ All time is unredeemable.” Time is closely connected with the divine as it serves to represent the concept of the everlasting. Perhaps most well known is the line “In my beginning is my end” which begins East Coker, and culminating with “In my end is my beginning.” He also later states that the “End and Beginning were always there.” This seeks to reinforce the theme of perpetuity and a changeless state. And this is once again repeated throughout many other portions, such as Dry Salvages: “There is no end, but addition: the trailing/Consequence of further days and hours.”
The nature of reality is also gestured towards with the concept of logos, which was used by ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Heraclitus writes: “The cosmos, the same for all, none of the gods nor of humans has made, but it was always and is and shall be: an ever-living fire being kindled in measures and being extinguished in measures…Changing, it rests.” The world itself is a constant flux as symbolized by fire. Fire is always in movement but remains the same substance. Likewise, the world of experience is one of change but it is the divine which is permanent and immutable. This moves towards the ontology of Parmenides, who posited change to be only apparent. This is illustrated with the line in Burnt Norton: “At the still point of the turning world./ Neither flesh nor fleshless;/ Neither from nor towards;/ at the still point, there the dance is.” This describes a world in perpetual change due to one unmoved mover, or God. Morris Weitz states of this line, “In God is the source of movement and the temporal. Not that God is movement; rather from Him emanates movement, to utilize a neo-Platonic idea. There is the temporal, the flux; but without God, the Timeless, there would be no temporal.”
This is also seen in the fragments of Heraclitus’ work which argue that the universe was governed by a single divine law, or logos, which was common to all but recognized by only few. That being said, logos also translates as “the Word”, meaning the truth and divine. Heraclitus’ writes, ““A fool is excited by every word”. This indicates that many fail to come to realize the truth although it is evident. They become attached to numerous false dogmas or ‘words’ but never come to know God who is ‘The Word’. Elliot also mirrors this in certain portions of “Four Quartets” in the lines which states: “Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind/ Cannot bear very much reality.” The bird is used here as a messenger of the Truth, which is not recognized by most in the realm of experience. To use Plato’s allegory of the cave, when the prisoner first is released from his chains, he looks into the light of the fire and is blinded. He then would sooner doubt the reality of the fire than the previous shadows which he believed to constitute all of reality. Experience fundamentally is set out to mislead because it distracts one’s attention from the realm outside of the cave, which is the form of the good or God. Elliot writes, “We must start with the temporal, the ever-changing experience; and come to see its dependence upon the Timeless (God)”
The form of the good itself is symbolized by the sun, which like God, gives rise to all the other representations in the sensible realm. But this form of the good is ultimately indescribable and ineffable to the cave dweller, who cannot recognize it as the source of his experiences. It is only the philosopher king who is able to leave the cave who sees that his experience does “Point to one end, which is always present.” Thus, Elliot rejects the virtue of a posteriori synthetic knowledge derived through empiricism. In short: our eyes deceive us. Elliot writes, “We had the experience but missed the meaning” and in East Coker, “There is, it seems to us/At best, only a limited value/In the knowledge derived from experience./The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies.” This amounts to a rejection of the ability for scientific empirical discovery to properly discover the nature of reality. Rather, for Elliot we must submit to faith: it is only by recognizing the Word that we may find redemption.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Gradations of Free Will?
If one holds the position that God (lets assume his existence for the purposes of this post) has granted mankind free will to use as he chooses, and such free will can be used to for evil, are there gradations of sin? This can be interpreted in two ways, are certain sins given the situation more morally reprehensible than others, assuming complete free will? For example, if a person killed another out of rage and one out of self defense, would not God view the one out of self defense as importantly different than the former? This once again must presume the omnipotence of an all-powerful being which could know internal intention. Does not the intention matter when committing a crime or likewise sin?
But this question can also be interpreted as asking, with the circumstances in mind, do we not perhaps act with less than free will in many situations? Even with a rejection of a deterministic hypothesis, one must concede that we are influenced greatly by a number of causes from day to day life which ultimately impact our behavior. This includes both cultural and biological factors. (I have discussed this in previous posts) Culturally, if a specific point in history socializes a person to act in a certain way which is considered a sin, do we say that that individual is less blameworthy then one who was raised in a different situation? If so, on what basis could we say any of these circumstantial aspects make us in any way responsible for our actions? If we were raised in a culture which valued such morality then we would act within the boundaries of what was commanded. But one cannot say in seriousness that it was I that choose to act in such as way all the way down. I merely conformed to the rules given to me throughout childhood, it was not completely earned. In the Rawlsian sense, just as our innate talents and economic position at birth does not constitute a basis for a dessert, our morality which is given to us does not constitute our deserving such a moral high ground in some sense. Perhaps this leads to some deep historical questions about the culpability of groups which did not adhere to Christianity. For instance, were the ancient Greeks less blameworthy for their actions because they lived before Christ? Ignorance of the law is no excuse for action contrary to it. But it would seem intuitively that such groups cannot be admonished for acting contrary to a moral code that was not yet provided. Are we therefore held to a higher standard now we do have such a code?
Moving on to biological factors, I believe a significant charge against absolute standards of sin within Christianity is the fact that certain individuals, such as kleptomaniacs as well as psychopaths, are biologically determined to act in a way which is contrary to the law which has been commanded. But once again, in what way can any Christian say in seriousness that these people deserve any sort of punishment? It was not they who choose to live as they do, there was no choice involved. And if choice is taking away completely, then man is no longer a moral agent, instead he is an automaton which cannot act otherwise. Criminal law also recognizes this distinction in dealing with cases in which a person pleads insanity, making his actions unintentional and not morally blameworthy.
Moreover, there is another problem if we maintain the position that human beings have absolute free will. This is most readily shown in the distinction painted between nature and man. Enlightenment thought presupposed that nature and all of the animal world is subject to deterministic and causal processes, whereas man is viewed as being an exclusively special rational creature. The dilemma is this: if we hold man to be absolutely free, and we also grant that he evolved given the evidence of Darwinian selection over a period of 5 million years from apes, we must concede that there was a point that he did not have such freedom. That is, if we hold that apes' behavior is governed by causal processes which are sufficient for action, then there must be a point at which humans developed the will through evolution. It is more reasonable to assume that this process occurred, if it occurred at all (as our behavior could be caused by underlying neurological processes), incrementally then in one single step transition. This fact requires us to reconceptualize the way in which we conceive of the experience of free will, its relationship to the causal processes within nature, and the possibility of gradations of freedom. If any degree of free will does in fact exist, and we concede it developed incrementally from the causal processes of nature, then we must evaluate the possibility of gradations of freedom within the animal world as well.
But this question can also be interpreted as asking, with the circumstances in mind, do we not perhaps act with less than free will in many situations? Even with a rejection of a deterministic hypothesis, one must concede that we are influenced greatly by a number of causes from day to day life which ultimately impact our behavior. This includes both cultural and biological factors. (I have discussed this in previous posts) Culturally, if a specific point in history socializes a person to act in a certain way which is considered a sin, do we say that that individual is less blameworthy then one who was raised in a different situation? If so, on what basis could we say any of these circumstantial aspects make us in any way responsible for our actions? If we were raised in a culture which valued such morality then we would act within the boundaries of what was commanded. But one cannot say in seriousness that it was I that choose to act in such as way all the way down. I merely conformed to the rules given to me throughout childhood, it was not completely earned. In the Rawlsian sense, just as our innate talents and economic position at birth does not constitute a basis for a dessert, our morality which is given to us does not constitute our deserving such a moral high ground in some sense. Perhaps this leads to some deep historical questions about the culpability of groups which did not adhere to Christianity. For instance, were the ancient Greeks less blameworthy for their actions because they lived before Christ? Ignorance of the law is no excuse for action contrary to it. But it would seem intuitively that such groups cannot be admonished for acting contrary to a moral code that was not yet provided. Are we therefore held to a higher standard now we do have such a code?
Moving on to biological factors, I believe a significant charge against absolute standards of sin within Christianity is the fact that certain individuals, such as kleptomaniacs as well as psychopaths, are biologically determined to act in a way which is contrary to the law which has been commanded. But once again, in what way can any Christian say in seriousness that these people deserve any sort of punishment? It was not they who choose to live as they do, there was no choice involved. And if choice is taking away completely, then man is no longer a moral agent, instead he is an automaton which cannot act otherwise. Criminal law also recognizes this distinction in dealing with cases in which a person pleads insanity, making his actions unintentional and not morally blameworthy.
Moreover, there is another problem if we maintain the position that human beings have absolute free will. This is most readily shown in the distinction painted between nature and man. Enlightenment thought presupposed that nature and all of the animal world is subject to deterministic and causal processes, whereas man is viewed as being an exclusively special rational creature. The dilemma is this: if we hold man to be absolutely free, and we also grant that he evolved given the evidence of Darwinian selection over a period of 5 million years from apes, we must concede that there was a point that he did not have such freedom. That is, if we hold that apes' behavior is governed by causal processes which are sufficient for action, then there must be a point at which humans developed the will through evolution. It is more reasonable to assume that this process occurred, if it occurred at all (as our behavior could be caused by underlying neurological processes), incrementally then in one single step transition. This fact requires us to reconceptualize the way in which we conceive of the experience of free will, its relationship to the causal processes within nature, and the possibility of gradations of freedom. If any degree of free will does in fact exist, and we concede it developed incrementally from the causal processes of nature, then we must evaluate the possibility of gradations of freedom within the animal world as well.
Friday, April 3, 2009
The Creation of Social Identity
Existence in a world of inter-subjective meaning imposes on the person a number of societal norms which impinge on the way in which he attempts to convey his own identity. We in turn, are forced to play a role depending on the context we are in. For instance, a person who acts a certain way in situation “x” will act a completely different way in “y”, due to the various obligations and rights associated with each particular institution. In this case, the environment is the formative agent whereas the agent himself paradoxically becomes mechanical according to the rules in the particular situation. For example, we might see that a person acts a certain way in a church because the conduct in that association demands a particular demeanor, procedure, etc.. If a person in a church were not to follow such rules they might be said to soon become an outsider in that community, and if such behavior was severely deviated from the groups mandated rules and regulations, they would be claimed to be heretical and excommunicated from the church.
Notice, however, that what applies to churches also applies to other institutions in the associational realm. Certain conduct is expected under the auspices of a business, at school, and even at home. As Searle argued, society creates the introduction or rights and obligations pursuant to the type of role which you serve. And if one were to spurn the standard conduct in each of these respective institutions we would venture to say that expulsion could be the result. The question is, what remains of a coherent picture of the self from the imposition of such standards? Don’t human actors create such institutions in the first place? Or are we all really pulled along with just the illusion of free will while we float down the same stream to a predetermined fate? I must say, I do not believe the average citizen has much of a chance to affect the formation of institutions, and therefore the definition of the self in such cases is determined by the environment in which one lives.
The degree of social determinism becomes more extreme depending on the type of political philosophy in place, i.e. cultural relativism. For instance, communitarian and collective societies such as China and the theocratic regime in Iran certainly maximize the degree of environmental determinism and acculturation. Factors such as governmental control over the levers of transparency such as the press, media, and education system also play a significant role in shaping and forming citizens' perceptions of the world. Although pluralism is heightened in a free society, the relative homogeneity of American culture imposes with it a certain standard on the person which constricts the ability of the self to choose. Indeed, American civics courses teach a dialogue of "freedom" and "individualism" which become the rhetoric of choice, so we are are raised with the notion that collective societies are somehow backwards or otherwise deficient. But it can be argued that this strong belief in individualism and limited government is only another form of acculturation. By any means, our civics texts do not possess any degree of higher order impartiality but rather are value-laden and highly centered on western dominance. This has led some post-modernists to claim they are simply meta-narratives or subjective stories that we tell, only one lens of seeing history. Are democratic citizens made, or do they emerge? (Josh Miller wrote a very good senior research on this a few years ago)
Notice, however, that what applies to churches also applies to other institutions in the associational realm. Certain conduct is expected under the auspices of a business, at school, and even at home. As Searle argued, society creates the introduction or rights and obligations pursuant to the type of role which you serve. And if one were to spurn the standard conduct in each of these respective institutions we would venture to say that expulsion could be the result. The question is, what remains of a coherent picture of the self from the imposition of such standards? Don’t human actors create such institutions in the first place? Or are we all really pulled along with just the illusion of free will while we float down the same stream to a predetermined fate? I must say, I do not believe the average citizen has much of a chance to affect the formation of institutions, and therefore the definition of the self in such cases is determined by the environment in which one lives.
The degree of social determinism becomes more extreme depending on the type of political philosophy in place, i.e. cultural relativism. For instance, communitarian and collective societies such as China and the theocratic regime in Iran certainly maximize the degree of environmental determinism and acculturation. Factors such as governmental control over the levers of transparency such as the press, media, and education system also play a significant role in shaping and forming citizens' perceptions of the world. Although pluralism is heightened in a free society, the relative homogeneity of American culture imposes with it a certain standard on the person which constricts the ability of the self to choose. Indeed, American civics courses teach a dialogue of "freedom" and "individualism" which become the rhetoric of choice, so we are are raised with the notion that collective societies are somehow backwards or otherwise deficient. But it can be argued that this strong belief in individualism and limited government is only another form of acculturation. By any means, our civics texts do not possess any degree of higher order impartiality but rather are value-laden and highly centered on western dominance. This has led some post-modernists to claim they are simply meta-narratives or subjective stories that we tell, only one lens of seeing history. Are democratic citizens made, or do they emerge? (Josh Miller wrote a very good senior research on this a few years ago)
“The German philosopher, Hiedeggar, has two important concepts that pertain to this discussion in a very powerful way: “thrown-ness” or “historicity” and “fallen-ness.” The former suggests that we are simply thrown into this world, a world that does not care for our desires or us. We were thrown into the bosom of our parents, into a certain culture and time period. Also, that we were simply given a certain personality and temperament. Then there is the enculturation and the indoctrination that simply “happen” to us through our parents and friends, society and media, religion and education. But, what makes human condition and existence even more horrific is the latter notion, “fallen-ness.” That is, once thrown, we fall into tasks or roles making our existence inauthentic, shallow and superficial. Even our thinking becomes calculative. We put on various masks such as being a teacher or a student, a husband or a wife, a waiter or a waitress and many others, and by falling into all sorts of roles, we lose authenticity and ourselves because we begin to identify ourselves and who we are through the masks that we wear.” (http://www.laney.peralta.edu/apps/comm.asp?Q=30570)
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