Brian Hamilton » Philosophy

How to succeed in continental philosophy

Brian Hamilton — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:34:11 +0000

Read enough classical texts to find some unusual concept or practice which is mentioned, but left undeveloped. It’s safest to draw from Plato or Aristotle, as then one can be confident of undermining the whole history of Western philosophy, but the scholastics are also a good choice if one wants to appear slightly eccentric, and going to Augustine might make you the next big thing. (Avoid St. Paul, especially if you’re a Christian, as you’ll probably end up coming across as a feckless imitator.) Proceed to demonstrate how this concept, properly understood, leads to the undoing of the whole discourse to which it originally belonged. Finally, identify three or four examples of a structurally similar idea appearing later in history, to prove that you have succeeded in superseding not only the original thinker himself, but his whole subsequent tradition.

Bonus points if you find such a concept in a relatively obscure person or text, then show it to be determinative for subsequent canonical thinkers.

The limit of sovereign power

Brian Hamilton — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:44:41 +0000

Alasdair MacIntyre says concerning Hobbes in A Brief History of Ethics that “the only limitations upon the obedience which the sovereign may demand is at the point where the motive for assenting to the transfer of power to the sovereign in the original contract, that is, the fear of death, becomes a motive for resisting the sovereign himself, namely at any point at which the sovereign threatens to take away one’s life” (p. 133). In other words, in Hobbes’s imagined nation, you owe the sovereign complete obedience except when the sovereign threatens your life. Since the whole point of ceding your natural rights to the sovereign was to avoid the threat of death, the whole contract is undone when the sovereign threatens you with death.

This aligns perfectly with Agamben’s reading of the paradox of sovereignty in Homo Sacer. The sovereign’s threat against your life is at once completely internal to the political agreement (i.e., the sovereign was named precisely for the purpose of wielding alone the power of life and death), and completely external to it, since for you the political agreement has entirely dissolved at the moment of the sovereign’s threat.

This is a concrete example of how, for Hobbes, the state of nature is not something simply external to the state nor certainly “before” it; the state of nature emerges at the very heart of the state whenever the sovereign threatens, just as he has been charged to do, any individual life.

A Moving Image of Eternity

Brian Hamilton — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:10:34 +0000

Time, by Timaeus’ description, is “a moving image of eternity,” stretched out towards the past and towards the future. We say of something in time that it was, or that it shall be; we ought not to say the same of the Eternal Being, who perfectly and forever simply is. Yet the father who had made the universe also made time whose vastness might call eternity to mind, and made it in measurable cycles whose completeness mirrors the Being that is eternally at one. “For the model exists eternally and the copy correspondingly has been and is and will be throughout the whole extent of time.”

Seeking Wisdom

Brian Hamilton — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:32:47 +0000

Despite Ambroses’s great knowledge of the classics and pagan philosophers, says Peter Brown, he used them only (if also frequently) to make a point about the Scriptures. Read alone, the philosophers were dangerous; philosophy itself, no matter how subtle or well developed, was a source of error for the Christian. In this respect Brown places Ambrose within the Christian ‘old guard,’ from which Augustine departs in seeing Christianity and philosophical wisdom as coinciding. Augustine’s conversion to philosophy anticipates and shapes his conversion to Christianity, rather than being interrupted by it. (Indeed, one looks in vain for any decisive sign of his recent conversion among the philosophical treatises composed at Cassiciacum.) Rather than understanding Christianity to be a ready-made set of answers to all his philosophical questions, Augustine sees in Christianity the promise of endless intellectual development which is yet capable of actually attaining to the truth, a lamp that might possibly illumine every last niche of human understanding. Among the very few biblical quotations he uses in his early works, one frequently finds this one: “Seek and you shall find.”

Kant’s Christ

Brian Hamilton — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 03:23:55 +0000

Kant’s effort is to make an idea or an archetype out of Christ, so that it is pre-eminently “mankind (rational earthly existence in general) in its complete moral perfection” through which all things are made, which has descended from heaven and dwells with us (in our “morally-legislative reason”). No actual instance of human moral perfection is necessary for the archetype to already press itself upon us. That’s not to say, of course, that it’s impossible that some man has been such an example–”as perfect an example of a man well-pleasing to God as one can expect to find in external experience (for be it remembered that the archetype of such a person is to be sought nowhere but in our own reason)”–but that even if there were, it would be morally speaking counter-productive to think of this man as anything but naturally begotten. If we imagine that he was supernaturally begotten, we can no longer have him as a moral example–since he possessed from the beginning a holy will more capable than ours of purity and obedience. The idea of one who empties himself of eminence might inspire gratitude, and he could even still be a model for us, but “he himself could not be represented to us as an example for our imitation, nor, consequently, as a proof of the feasibility and attainability for us of so pure and exalted a moral goodness.”

But (say I), one who comes to work for us, to do things on our behalf we ourselves could not do, can also be an example for our imitation if he gives us the (not merely natural) power to do so. “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you… Receive the Holy Spirit.” “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The very Son of God can also be a moral exemplar because he is not merely a moral exemplar; he also frees us from the power of death by conquering death on the cross, and he gives us the Spirit to guide us into his perfection. Even the perfect obedience of Jesus was not a private accomplishment, but performed by virtue of his communion with the Father who sent him and by the Spirit’s power given him in his birth and baptism. Since Christ became flesh, we have also been sent; our flesh has also, through baptism, been made able to receive the Holy Spirit’s perfection.

The Christian Interruption

Brian Hamilton — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:26:34 +0000

Peter Leithart captured the moment I would love to have seen:

bq. The papers in the seminar on the recent Duke publication Theology and the Political: The New Debate were dense, difficult, and hard to follow. And then Graham Ward got up and said, essentially, that the whole point of Radical Orthodoxy was to start with Christ; all the philosophical apparatus arises as second-order reflection on what is revealed, particularly on the incarnation. Thus, the debate about ontology is not about analogy or participation per se, but about trying to formulate a “Christic ontology,” which Ward admitted has not been achieved. He spent a good bit of his time discussing passages in Colossians and 1 Corinthians.

Hart spoke on Saturday about “the Christian interruption of metaphysics,” and here Ward is enacting the Christian interruption of academic discourse: when a heavily-theorized God unexpectedly takes on flesh, we must fall silent–or rather, we must sing hymns of praise to the God who walks among us. It’s a life-giving interruption and the embodiment of Christian humility, that we would be willing to suspend our cherished theories of distance and différance and deferral at that moment when we glimpse the son of God in a stable or an empty tomb that once held the crucified Christ.

Nostalgic Marxism

Brian Hamilton — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:20:00 +0000

bq. Some socially useful thinkers–for example, Cornel West, Fredric Jameson, and Terry Eagleton–still speak of themselves, for what seem to me purely sentimental reasons, as ‘Marxists.’ Such sentimentality appalls Poles and Hungarians who never want to hear Marx’s name again. I suspect it would baffle the Chinese disidents starving in the laogai. Nevertheless, there is little harm in such nostalgic piety. For in the mouths of these people the word ‘Marxism’ signals hardly more than an awareness that the right are still ripping off the poor, bribing the politicians, and having almost everything their own way. —Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country, 46.

The way I continually laugh out loud while reading Rorty makes me suspect I’m not taking him seriously enough. It’s this kind of polemic that I find amusing most of the time, and often because there’s quite a bit of truth to it–but, I admit, I also find myself laughing when Rorty is at his most philosophical, proclaiming the uselessness of Truth and the eschatological triumph of progress based on whatever contingencies. Still, I find his political vision oddly compelling, despite our enormous ground-level differences. Perhaps I’m just thankful for a leftist political philosophy that doesn’t begin with Marx or assume the immediate necessity of revolution, and moreover one that makes rooms for the messy sort of political cooperation that really constitutes all political history (as he himself argues).

Legislation and the Republic

Brian Hamilton — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 16:02:00 +0000

I am consistently disturbed by the fervent desire of so many Christians to hear the government underwrite our moral commitments, something happening again with “South Dakota’s anti-abortion legislation (Article in the New York Times, 25 February 2006)”:http://nytimes.com/2006/02/25/national/25abortion.htm. The borders of anti-abortion activism extend well beyond American churches, of course, but there’s no doubt that evangelicals shout louder than most.

It disturbs me because the attempts first of all imply all that it’s possible to make the government Christian–which inevitably waters down our witness. Secondly, though, it makes me wonder how many of us feel incapable of living a specifiably Christian life (personally or communally) without the backing of the government. Does having the Ten Commandments in front of a courthouse really aid our witness, or is losing it simply a symbol of our lapsing control on U.S. culture? Good riddance, I say, if it means that we turn back to synagogues and churches to find the proper use of Torah.

This time around, it strikes me most that the proponents of this bill really think they are fixing things. Maybe I misunderstand, but it seems to me that the conservative vision is endlessly optimistic about the American character, believing that passing certain pieces of legislation can and will make this country more morally coherent–even on Christian grounds.^1^ It reminds me of something I’ve just read Plato say in Republic:

bq. Socrates: They pass and amend the sorts of laws we have just been describing, and are always expecting that they will find a way to put a stop to cheating on contracts, and the other evildoings I mentioned just now, not realizing that they are really just cutting off a Hydra’s head.

Adeimantus: Yet that is all they are really doing.

Socrates: I would have thought, then, that a true lawgiver should not bother with laws or constitutions of this kind, whether in a politically badly governed or in a politically well-governed city–in the one because it is useless and accomplishes nothing; in the other because some of them are discoverable by anyone, while the others follow automatically from the practices already described. (Republic 426e–427a)

All that needs to be legislated, Plato goes on to say, are those practices that sustain the sort of virtue the Republic requires. Now Plato is as rigid in his morality as any Christian ever was, but he understands (wisely, in my view) that a consistent morality is the outcome of a good education and good practices–not of a mélange of specific laws that lack firm grounding in anything particular. Even Jewish law begins over and over again with “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Israel was not afraid to get specific with their laws, but neither did they begin there; few groups have ever performed the rites of education so well.

I’m certainly not suggesting that the U.S. set up an educational system that insures that an “American morality.” In many ways we’ve already done so, but this dishonestly limits the pluralistic conversation that this nation is committed to. Plato does, though, recommend a better way for Christians to go about their moral agenda: by openly offering education in a different way of living and a different way of thinking.

I believe it is entirely possible to participate in a national pluralism while maintaining a consistency among ourselves not present elsewhere. We cannot, however, presume to remake the nation in our own image. And we cannot for a moment forget that our Sustainer is not that nation, but the Holy Spirit.

h3(#footnotes). Endnotes

(footnotes) The same could be rightly said about the liberal agenda, of course. My point isn’t against Republicans and for Democrats, but rather that Christians should know better than to try to redeem the fallen powers by legislation instead of witness.

Heraclitus’ Criticism by Contrast

Brian Hamilton — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:34:00 +0000

My impression is that Heraclitus comes across in most contemporary expositions as as lacking the capacity for moral criticism. Heraclitus, they say, was primarily interested in the way that opposites create each other, so to speak: the way the presence of disease gives meaning to health and the presence of war gives meaning to peace.

True enough. One of Heraclitus’ most fascinating (and well-expressed) insights is the contingency of moral preference and the interconnectedness of opposites. The fragments regarding the former are well known: “donkeys prefer trash to gold,” he says, and “pigs enjoy filth more than pure water.” And that one can only grasp certain ideas alongside their opposites—”things whole, things not whole; being brought together, being separated; consonant, dissonant”—is a point that many contemporary theologians have used to speak of the difference between church and world. Neither the church nor the world is a standalone entity, since there would be no church, no alternative community for whom Jesus is Lord, if there were no world who needed an alternative.

But an exposition that leaves Heraclitus solely concerned with the sameness of opposites omits another aspect of his discussion of opposites. This use is more subtle:

bq. If it were not in Dionysus’ honour that they make a procession and sing a hymn to shameful parts, their deed would be a most shameful one. But Hades and Dionysus, for whome they rave and celebrate the festival of the Lenaea, are the same! (Fragment 15)

It makes sense, Heraclitus sneers, that these absurd and shameful festivals should be celebrated to Dionysus. But in their madness, they miss that they are celebrating also the god of the underworld! Are these the words of one who takes all opposites as necessary to each other? Or again, perhaps more clearly:

bq. The bow’s name is ‘life’, but it’s job is death! (Fragment 48)

This quip rests on a word play with the Greek βιος (bios). With an accent over the omicron, the meaning is “bow.” With an accent over the iota, the meaning is “life.” How could he mean this except as an ironic criticism of the use of a bow?

It seems at odds with many of his other statements, but my take is this: although Heraclitus usually plays with opposites to emphasize the flux and contingency of life, preference, and even morality, there remains another use of opposites—perhaps ironic opposites—that serves as a basis for moral critique. This would account for some of his more direct moral criticisms, and would seem to work more coherently with a λογος (logos) that “holds forever” and that remains “universal.”

(In my entry for the Fragments, I’ve included several quotes on Heraclitus’ understanding of war and justice.)

Heraclitus’ Fragments

Brian Hamilton — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 06:52:00 +0000

Fragment 43: [He used to say that] there is a greater need to extinguish hybris [that is, violence or insolence] than there is a blazing fire. (Diogenes Laertius 9.2)

Fragment 52: Lifetime is a child playing, moving pieces in a backgammon (?) game; kingly power (or: the kingdom) is in the hands of a child. (Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.4)

Commentary on Fragment 52, by T.M. Robinson: War (= the clash of opposites) is the principle of change underpinning the real. As king and father of the whole, it directs the operations of the whole. (Robinson 117)

Fragment 53: War is the father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others free. (Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.4)

Fragment 67: God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and famine, and undergoes change in the way that fire?, whenever it is mixed with spices, gets called bythe name that accords with the bouquet of each spice. (Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.8)

Fragment 80: One must realize that war is common, and justice strife, and that all things come ot be through strife and are so †ordained†. (Origen, Contra Celsum 6.12)

Fragment 102: To god all things are fair and just, whereas humans have supposed that some things are unjust, other things just. (Porphyry Quaestiones Homericae)

Commentary on Fragment 102, by T.M. Robinson: ‘Justice’ for Heraclitus, as later for Plato, seems to mean the harmony/balanced tension of opposites. How the term is used will turn on context. (Robinson 148)

—Heraclitus, Fragments