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Advaita Vedānta, ascent/descent, consequentialism, Disengaged Buddhism, Epicurus, Eric Voegelin, French Revolution, Lucretius, rebirth, Śaṅkara, Śāntideva, Sigmund Freud, Simone Weil, Vladimir Lenin
A couple of my recent posts have explored the idea of anti-politics – the idea that concern with affairs of the state is typically detrimental to a good human life. The anti-political view is one for which I have great sympathy. Now, as the previous post might have suggested, I also reject the supernatural; I believe that natural science is our best guide to the causality of the physical world, and that we would do well to look with skepticism on belief in celestial bodhisattvas, the multiplication of tooth relics, or an afterlife.
But if one takes up the resulting position – neither supernatural nor political – then one has relatively little company in the history of philosophy. From Yavanayāna Buddhists to Unitarian Universalists, those who have sought to move beyond the supernatural have typically also believed in political engagement. The vast majority of political quietists like Śāntideva believed in a vast panoply of unseen worlds far beyond those supported by empirically tested evidence.
I continue to wonder: is there something I’m missing? Is there some reason why so many in the end tend to supernaturalism, politics, or both? (Epicurus is perhaps the clearest example of a figure who avoided both supernaturalism and politics – but Epicureanism as a system did not last, and even those who sought to resurrect Epicurus’s philosophy have sometimes ditched his anti-politics.)
Last time I mused on the subject, I turned to an explanation from Simone Weil: “Atheist materialism is necessarily revolutionary, because to orient oneself toward an absolute good down here, one must place it in the future.” Humans, Weil seems to imply, will always seek some sort of absolute perfection: the choice is to seek it in an otherworldly realm, or in the future of this one. Eric Voegelin appeared to see the same choice as Weil, and view the latter choice as disastrous: there will always be an “eschaton,” a Final End that human life aspires to, and if we immanentize it – that is, set it in this world instead of a transcendent world beyond – then we will end up with totalitarian states that goosestep over the messy imperfections inevitable in human life. Whether or not there were any other world in which to transcend, according to Voegelin, the absence of belief in such an other world leads us to terror in this one.
But I asked before: do we really have to seek an absolute good? What about just seeking modest improvements, trying to minimize suffering without eliminating it? As non-supernaturalists, shouldn’t we just try and make sure that people set their eyes lower than Weil and Voegelin do?
Well, one answer that comes to mind for that question is: death. The existence of a final death seems to pose a major problem for any sort of egoistic consequentialism, any idea that one should seek out the best consequences for oneself – including the virtue and tranquility that Epicurus himself seeks. For eventually, there will be no further consequences no matter what one does. At the last moment of one’s life, there is no future, nothing to maximize and no reason to do anything. And at the previous moment, all the egoist can act for is something better in that last moment. In the earlier moments of life, the moments that one can improve will run out before one knows it. As important as this one life looks while we’re in it, it begins to look pretty small when one faces impending death, whether it is impending in seconds or in decades.
By contrast, an absolute good – an “eschaton” – outlasts the individual self, it is something bigger to strive for. Even striving for the good of one’s immediate circle of friends and relatives seems hollow when their death will follow in a few decades as well. But the state – that offers the promise of something more lasting. The Jacobins are long dead, but the capitalist world unleashed by the French Revolution is still with us. The possibility of a classless communist society offers the same intoxicating thought of a world in which one’s contributions live on long after death, a world where one’s life is more important than its mere length.
Politics, then, offers a way to transcend death through what Freud called cathexis – as might one’s children and one’s work. We break down the boundaries of our selves and identify them with something that outlasts ourselves, such as a state or new classless society.
But there remains a basic problem with transcending death through cathexis in this way: the object of cathexis has no guarantee of immortality either. Lenin’s classless society lies in ruins today. What guarantee have we that the perfect society we think we’re building will not do the same? Let alone the more minor improvements we might make to politics as it is. This seems to me the greatest problem with descent philosophies of whatever variety: however much one might accomplish, in the end it comes to naught. Lucretius is right that when we die we won’t care about that nothingness. But that doesn’t stop it from casting a shadow over all we do in life, raising questions about the point of it all, whether it’s really worth bothering or we’re just fooling ourselves.
And so I start to turn to ascent philosophies, views that turn us in some respect away from the world we see. But then we are back to the original problem: most ascent philosophies, especially the ascending intimacy philosophies, are supernaturalist. They depend on an afterlife, turn us away from this world toward the one that is supposed to come after death – but to one who doesn’t believe in the supernatural, it would seem like there is no such thing.
However, those philosophies of the afterlife have one thing in common with the descent philosophies. They both put the absolute good, the eschaton, in the future, whether a transcendent or immanent future. A great appeal to me of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta philosophy is that it gives us an eschaton which is beyond time itself, and therefore essentially not in the future. We have an absolute good that is already there at all times; it’s just a matter of realizing it. Does Śaṅkara get us entirely beyond the supernaturalism-or-politics quandary? Probably not – he believed in rebirth himself, after all, and the main point of bothering to realize the absolute good would be that one would do so in the future and avoid the suffering attached to future ignorant births. It makes for an interesting alternative way of viewing the problem, but not necessarily a solution to it.
michael reidy said:
Amod:
quibble. The eschaton is not just Heaven. In fact eschatology is described as the 4 Last Things i.e. death, judgment, heaven, hell. Most religions do not simply subscribe to an other worldly asceticism; compassion/caritas demands that you do your best to improve the conditions of the world at large which is the ‘neighbour’ in the N.T. Religion is not a personal thing merely, there are social duties too.
Amod Lele said:
Sure, many traditions do urge earthly justice (although I would say the number is not as many as is often believed). What we have in such cases is a combination of both supernatural and political; I think such cases are widespread indeed. It’s the opposite case, neither supernatural nor political, which has seemed to me to be thin on the ground.
Thill said:
“Whether or not there were any other world in which to transcend, according to Voegelin, the absence of belief in such an other world leads us to terror in this one.”
If that is so, how would he account for the terrors unleashed in this world by the “Holy Inquisition” in the name of saving the souls of so many unfortunate women in the other world?
Supernaturalism and non-supernaturalism are both compatible with political activism and political quietism. Hence, the former pair are logically independent of the latter pair. So, the affirmation or denial of an other world in which we continue to exist after the death of our bodies in this world has nothing to do, logically, with the choice to be a political activist or “inactivist”.
“This seems to me the greatest problem with descent philosophies of whatever variety: however much one might accomplish, in the end it comes to naught. Lucretius is right that when we die we won’t care about that nothingness. But that doesn’t stop it from casting a shadow over all we do in life, raising questions about the point of it all, whether it’s really worth bothering or we’re just fooling ourselves.”
Spinoza said in his Ethics “A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.”
But the “death card” is the most powerful card in the arsenal of religion. Victory over hearts and minds in the name of religion is assured when this card is played.
Only an egoist would think that all that is of value “comes to naught” at one’s death! And the value of something does not depend on that thing’s permanence. Value does not cease to be value because it is transitory. Hence, neither impermanence nor death diminish or undermine the pursuit of value individually or collectively. In fact, were it not for impermanence or death, some things would not have the value they have for us! And certainly, as the Japanese would point out, the exquisite attitude of Mono No aware would not be possible without impermanence!
Amod Lele said:
I think you’re right to bring up the horrors perpetrated by Christians and Muslims in response to Voegelin’s claims; the regimes that immanentize the eschaton are hardly alone in perpetrating terror. I don’t buy his account, and I was using it more as a heuristic; but I didn’t make that clear in the post.
But the “death card” is the most powerful card in the arsenal of religion. Victory over hearts and minds in the name of religion is assured when this card is played.
You say this like it’s a bad thing. Death is rather a big deal. And the point of that section of the post was to note that even if one is not an egoist, death can come to make one’s work futile, for the others that one benefits will die too.
Thill said:
If we consider that all living organisms on our planet are subject to death, then we realize that the death of a human being has no claim to importance, in the vast impersonal scheme of nature, in just the way that the death of a mosquito has no claim to importance. In the scheme of nature the bodies of humans and mosquitoes are “recycled” in the same way.
But then religion has implanted the notion that we humans are special (the entire cosmos was created for us, etc)and that the death of a human being has some deep significance or importance which the death of a mosquito lacks. Religion also exploits the fear of death in favor of its own perpetuation. But if your religious beliefs make no difference to the reality of death or the process of dying, what is their relevance to death?
I’ve already pointed out the irrelevance of death to the pursuit of value. You seem to assume that only the permanence of what is pursued or the immortality of the pursuer or agent can justify the pursuit of value. This is false. We don’t cease to enjoy a song or other things because they have an ending! A singer knows that her song comes to an end and that she herself will die someday. It would be morbid and absurd for her to cease singing because of these facts. The pursuit of value has gone on since the dawn of human civilization and neither the fact of death nor religious propaganda on death has done anything, and sensibly so, to deter that pursuit.
Just consider the morbidity and absurdity of saying “We could die anytime. So, we should stop reading and contributing to this blog.”!
Commonsense recognizes the “sound and fury signifying nothing” and the futility of portentous reflections on what is inevitable and irrelevant to the concerns in the present. Hence, life goes on, even for the eloquent speakers and preachers, despite all the portentous talk of death.
As Omar Khayyam put it:
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.
Thill said:
“death can come to make one’s work futile, for the others that one benefits will die too.”
But it is irrational not to undertake a work merely because of the possibility that death could terminate that work at any time. Do we refrain from having our breakfast or going to sleep because of the possibility that death could intervene in the middle of our breakfast or while we are asleep?
It is also irrational not to undertake a work because those who benefit from it will die someday! We don’t engage in work or activities in order to make others immortal or on the assumption that others are immortal. Those who are investigating Cancer or Alzheimer’s disease know very well that they are mortal and that the potential beneficiaries of their research are also mortal. But this makes no difference to the value of that research!
JimWilton said:
“The main point of bothering to realize the absolute good would be that one would do so in the future and avoid the suffering attached to future ignorant births.”
This is probably an accurate statement of the view of enlightenment from the point of view of confusion. However, it is worth understanding that this is a view that the path wears out. From the point of view of enlightenment (to the extent we can talk about it) there are no future births, there is only now and to the extent there is suffering compassion exists.
skholiast said:
Amod, much to engage here, and it’s always a pleasure to see Voegelin’s name invoked; but for now, just two quick quibbles. First, when you write:
“Does Śaṅkara get us entirely beyond the supernaturalism-or-politics quandary? Probably not – he believed in rebirth himself…”
I am not sure one has to believe in supernaturalism per se in order to believe in rebirth. It depends on how you conceptualize the latter, no? (why could one not have a completely naturalistic rebirth? Especially if there is no self to be reborn? In this case, what “continues” is simply the chain of cause-and-effect, which yes must be thought of in some broader terms than neurochemical cascade, but need not refer to supernatural entities called souls or devas or etc).
Second, you note that your rejection of politics and the supernatural seem to “leave you with little company.” But I think it is rather the opposite. The history of philosophy seems to me replete with warnings that neither superstition nor politics will finally deliver wisdom. One may not be able to eschew the political entirely, but surely what philosophy (or at least many philosophers) advise(s) is a measured engagement with it, rather than either rejection or making oneself a career politician. Likewise, I see philosophy as a constant critique of superstition, even if it does not try to sweep away all of the mass of religious myth from the masses, and even if many philosophers ultimately draw the line before atheism and scientism.
Amod Lele said:
On the supernatural, this is a very interesting way of putting the question. A lot of it hinges on my working definition of the supernatural, which relates closely to natural science: the supernatural is that which seems implausible given the findings of natural-scientific research. As far as I know, nearly all research into the idea of rebirth has found no evidence for it and some against it. But – once I spell out the definition of “supernatural” that way, it begins to seem like I should be phrasing the post’s question very differently: namely, why is it that a concern with politics so often seems to accompany the influence of natural science?
I don’t think this is your understanding of natural and supernatural, though. How do you understand these terms?
Thill said:
Amod: “the supernatural is that which seems implausible given the findings of natural-scientific research.”
This is too broad. One could make naturalistic claims about physical things or processes which would be or seem to be implausible given current natural-scientific research, e.g., claims of alien abduction, alien visitations, presence of aliens on Mars or the Moon, claims that cancer is caused by a virus, etc. But these claims would be “supernatural” according to your criterion!
While “seems implausible given the findings of natural-scientific research” is certainly a characteristic of claims on the supernatural, not everything which has that characteristic is a claim about the supernatural.
Hence, you need another criterion or other criteria of the supernatural.
Amod Lele said:
This is a good point. I have no particular problem with characterizing alien abduction as supernatural; belief in it would seem to be in a class with belief in past lives with recall or the like. But the belief that viruses cause cancer (or vaccines cause autism or the like) – that seems to me in a different class of beliefs. I should think about this further.
Amod Lele said:
On politics, the point is also intriguing. Which philosophers are you thinking of here? I suppose Plato comes to mind as a good example of what you’re talking about, and is perhaps a good way of nuancing the ideas of politics and anti-politics. Politics plays a central role in his vision of the good life in the Thinking about politics is crucial as an intellectual tool, a means of figuring out what the good life is. Participating in politics is not – for real politics will always fall short of the good life we try to build for ourselves in our minds, and maybe also in our lived lives.
Topher said:
“Is there something I’m missing? Is there some reason why so many in the end tend to supernaturalism, politics, or both?”
Here’s the reason as I see it: Without the supernatural and without politics (including utilitarianism), what ground has one for decisions of any kind, moral or otherwise? I see only Rorty’s answer: a personal aesthetic. And if that’s all you have, then the problem becomes how to pilot your aesthetic between the Scylla of nihilism and the Charybdis of jackbooted enthusiasm.
It’s a dilemma that can be solved by the (transcendent) supernatural or (utilitarian) politics. Can anything else do the trick?
Amod Lele said:
Good to see you again, Topher! The question of the ground for decision is an important and thorny one, which I’ve got back to a number of times on the blog, although probably not enough for a satisfactory resolution. But I don’t think I quite understand the approach you take to it. I don’t think utilitarianism solves the question at all; one still needs a good ground for being utilitarian, and I strongly doubt that one exists. And to suggest the supernatural as an answer places one in Euthyphro territory: surely the gods will the good because it is good, not vice versa.
And as for the third option: why does aesthetics get a priority over other motivations here? It seems to me that one is always in the world with preexisting motivations which function as reasons for action. Whether they are good reasons is another story, but invoking aesthetics doesn’t seem to change the matter very much.
Topher said:
Good to be back, Amod! This post, and its associated comments, have really engaged me.
Instead of ‘aesthetic’ I should have said ‘ungrounded or subjective personal opinion,’ or more simply, ‘personal whim’; I meant only to distinguish egoistic opinions from those opinions formed within a ‘shared moral horizon,’ (to use Charles Taylor’s phrase).
I meant to express the opinion that without a shared moral horizon (metaphysical or political), one’s philosophical companions have two examplars: Diogenes of Sinope (rejecting any moral horizon) or Nietzsche (the superhuman effort of creating a moral universe from scratch).
If there are models of shared moral horizons that are not grounded in the metaphysical or political, and that are not synonymous with cynicism or ubermenschism, I would be very curious to learn about them!
…In any case, I see we’re on to the next post already!
Amod Lele said:
Glad it’s engaged you! Yes, there’s another post up, but don’t let that stop you – I haven’t found much time to respond to posts lately, so some of my responses don’t come until another post is almost up.
I suppose the truth of your claim depends primarily on what we count as a “shared moral horizon.” The way you phrase the claims above, they seem to depend on a liberal individualistic atomist conception of the human person. (Fighting words, perhaps, but bear with me.) We do not enter ethical reflection from an Archimedean zero point; I noted a while ago that even Descartes doesn’t start chronologically from the cogito, but has to get there by reasoning from a less adequate common sense. We always begin reflection with preexisting motivations and desires, which almost always include some desire for happiness, at the very least. Now, to the extent that these preexisting motivations come from a general human biological inheritance, they are shared with the other humans who possess that inheritance; and to the extent that they are socially formed, they are generally shared with others formed by the same society. One could call this a “shared moral horizon” if one wished, but there is nothing necessarily supernatural about it; and it is political only in the very general and abstract sense that the society forming one’s horizon will have some sort of political organization.
But these motivations and desires seem to many to be a sufficient ground for a good human life. Aristotle reaches the conception of eudaimonia primarily by appealing to these shared presuppositions in his readers. Now, in his case this leads to politics; but Epicurus does the same thing, pointing to the human desire for happiness, and leads his readers away from politics, based on their preexisting motivation to seek their own happiness. (He does so without the appeal to much that is supernatural.) From my limited knowledge, his argument seems to some extent to be grounded in human nature: we are the kind of beings who seek happiness, but our usual behaviours (especially political ones) interfere with this goal. This seems to be just the third kind of position you’re inquiring about, significantly different from both Diogenes and Nietzsche.
skholiast said:
This seems a very good approximation. Philosophy is the search for “what is best”, for why to do what we do (cf Phaedo, where Socrates asks why to run to Boetia or why to stay put and drink up). I think philosophy continually critiques ersatz reasons, but it must also always give them their due.
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