Il Gattamelata

'Il Gattamelata'

There’s a book on my bookshelf entitled ‘The Wreck of Western Culture - Humanism Revisited’ by John Carroll, an Australian professor of sociology. I read it some years ago, and was entranced by a discussion in Chapter Two about an equestrian statue that stands in Padua, in front of San Antonio’s Basilica. The statue was made by Donatello around 1447. In art history terms, it’s an early example of Renaissance statuary. The prof uses it as a kind of metaphor or example of a profound change of thinking that signalled the rise of humanism in western Europe.

What’s so entrancing about the statue? I’ve never been entirely sure, but when I found myself in the vicinity of Padua I just had to go and find it...despite the grey rainy day...

The statue is called ‘Il Gattamelata’, which was the nickname of the gentleman it depicts mounted on his horse - he was a 14th century condottiere, or mercenary. I’ll let Professor Carroll explain its significance a little more:

“For over five hundred years now, the small square in front of the cathedral of San Antonio in Padua has worshipped a different god than he who rules inside the church doors, where one plunges into the dark. There is awe in the square, open to the heavens. To come in sight of it - and it is best to do so at noon in the full light of day, and to lift the eyes and look - from that moment on, one is in the thrall of humanism. True, it is possible to sidle up to the cathedral with head lowered, the first signs being the stalls for tourists and pilgrims selling plastic knick-knacks, garish red charms and crudely painted virgins, all the paraphernalia of modern Italian Catholicism. They can crowd out the square.

Verrocchio's 'Il Colleoni'

What does command here, set on a high and massive stone pedestal, is the Gattamelata. He is the Venetian general Erasmo de Narni, on horseback, immortalised in bronze a few years after his death in 1443, by Donatello. His form is that of the medieval condottiere, the warrior who by means of his own singular, brute strength and courage could win any war. The condottiere was the hero of the earlier epoch, one embodying subhuman fantasies of the monstrous force of animal nature, at times subliminated into the chivalrous ideal of the Christian knight. The most brilliant representation of the medieval condottiere stands fewer than thirty miles from Padua, in the Campo of saints Giovanni and Paolo in Venice - that is, Verrocchio’s equestrian statue of Il Colleoni. A mountain of a man, rearing up in his stirrups, Il Colleoni thrusts his massive torso and neck, his thick and crude features glowering from under a steel helmet like those of an enraged beast. He is a hulk of indomitable power.

The Gattamelata is mounted on a strong, square warhorse, formidably serviceable, with stocky legs, the neck and chest of a bull, and a fierce head. This charger has the attributes that Verrocchio was to give his warrior. The Gattamelata himself is the epitome of balance, and confidence of a different order - its source is inward. He sits lightly in the saddle, his posture straight and relaxed. he looks ahead, without helmet. In his right hand, which is forward over the horse’s mane, he delicately holds a baton. Whereas his charger strives, he is composed. Donatello underscores the point by making the rider proportionately smaller in relation to the bulk of his horse. The human individual is master of powerful forces surging beneath him: they champ, they pull, they are vastly stronger yet, through his own will, his own force of character, nothing to do with physical strength only to do with balance, and a clear and concentrated mind, he is master. The baton is also suggestive of a scroll, symbol of knowledge, of the rational human mind conquering the volcanic chaos of nature. The Gattamelata is renaissance man.

The Gattameleta on his plinth.

He has nothing to obey but himself; he needs nothing above or beyond the I. he is the value-creating individual - on the move. There is such intensity focused between the brows, such inviolable purpose buried in the eyes, that the head itself, bare to the heavens, becomes the sacred site. A concentrated mind may move the very earth.

Humanism, nevertheless, needed an ethic, a central moral axiom, to secure its foundation. The clarity and steady vision with which the Gattamelata looks straight ahead, taking in the world, is not enough. Neither is his commanding will. He is so superbly in form because he embodies the humanist ethos. He does obey one external - he is a gentleman, or in the Italian characterisation of Castiglione, a courtier. And, as a gentleman, he is under the command of honour...The principal role of the humanist hero was...to become so awesomely noble that the rest of common humanity would believe in the culture he exemplified.

The ease and grace of the Gattamelata is predicated on the knowledge that he is right, doing what he has to do...Donatello’s...vision is different. he saw the concentrated, essential value, and stripped away the rest. What remains is the grace of pure form. The Gattamelata on a bright noon is an exhilarating tribute to the human individual. It’s message is, ‘I like him!’ "

And you thought it was just a statue of a man on a horse.

Academicals

Harry Potter? No - philosophy graduates.

As the Great Day of our graduation with a Master of Arts in Philosophy - one each - approached, my friend said she thought she might give the academic dress a miss - there’s the hiring fee, after all, and she wondered if perhaps she could go in her kids’ Harry Potter cape with a wand...but I said, “how often do you get to wear that kind of thing?” So we both dressed up in the fancy dress.

The origins of today’s academic dress - the robe, hood and classical cap - go back to the first universities in medieval times. To identify themselves as sober scholars, student wore Students wore long, sober clothing. It’s questionably whether the sobriety of students has persisted, but the academic clothing is still dusted off on graduation day. Many Oxbridge colleges, schools and some ecclesiastical services still use the gown and hood, however it is usually only seen at degree ceremonies.

The academic dress found in most universities in the British Commonwealth and the United States is derived from that of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which was a development of academic and clerical dress common throughout the medieval universities of Europe.

Graduands gather.

And what do they wear under that? According to tradition, formal or sober (there’s that word again) clothing is typically worn beneath the gown. For example, men would often wear a dark suit with a white shirt and tie, or clerical clothing, military or civil uniform, or national dress, and women would wear equivalent attire. Clearly nobody had mentioned this bit to the Russian blond who took home an MSc...she seemed to favour what we might call the “lady-of-the-night” look in fashion; or perhaps we could call it “this-is-how-I-got-my-degree”...

But I digress. I am not being sober.

According to Wikipedia:

Some older universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, have a prescribed set of dress (known as subfusc) to be worn under the gown. Though some universities are relaxed about what people wear under their gowns, it is nevertheless considered bad form to be in casual wear or the like during graduation, and a number of universities may bar finishing students from joining the procession or the ceremony itself if not appropriately dressed.

Luckily for Svetlana, Birkbeck is not so picky.

Caps, hoods and gowns.

When looking into this question of academic dress, I found here that there are actually people who give their time and talents to its many niceties:

There is a distinction between different types of academical dress...gowns, hoods and caps are categorised into their shape and patterns by the Groves classification system, which is based on Nicholas Groves's document, Hood and Gown Patterns.This lists the various styles or patterns of academic dress and assigns them a code or a Groves Classification Number. For example, the Cambridge BA style gown is designated [b2] and a hood in the Cambridge full-shape is designated [f1], etc. Because the universities are free to design their own academicals using a wide range of available gown, hood and cap patterns, colours and materials at their and the robemaker's disposal, the academicals of two given universities rarely clash with each other.

Now, there’s a few remarkable things about this information, Firstly, I draw your attention to the word “academicals”, which is a perfectly lovely word that I never knew before. Secondly, I draw your attention to Nicholas Groves and his Groves Classification Numbers, because without Mr Groves, where would we be? Lost, that’s where, not knowing our tassels from our hoods. I suggest a toast to Nicholas Groves. Oh, wait...that’s not very sober.

More caps, hoods and gowns.

And there’s more:

The Burgon Society was founded in 2000 to promote the study of academic dress. Its publications and activities examine the history and current use of academic dress and in 2011 it published the third edition of Shaw's reference book on British and Irish academical dress.The Society hosts a conference each spring at which recent research is presented.

A Society! A Conference, for heaven’s sake! About academic dress! Well, I may be the proud recipient of a Masters degree in Philosophy - and have received it right soberly and in the correct outfit - but it’s clear that there’s always something new for me to learn.

I looked just like that! Sober!

The modern gown is derived from the roba worn under the cappa clausa, a garment resembling a long black cape. In early medieval times, all students at the universities were in at least minor orders, and were required to wear the cappa or other clerical dress, and restricted to clothes of black or other dark colour. The gowns most commonly worn, that of the clerical type gowns of Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Master of Arts (MA), are substantially the same throughout the English-speaking world. Both are traditionally made of black cloth, (although occasionally the gown is dyed in one of the university's colours) and have the material at the back of the gown gathered into a yoke. The BA gown has bell-shaped sleeves, while the MA gown has long sleeves closed at the end, with the arm passing through a slit above the elbow. In the Commonwealth, gowns are worn open, while in the United States it has become common for gowns to close at the front, as did the original roba.

Birkbeck Graduation Day

But what of the particular fancy dress that we Philosophy grads donned for our Big Day? I looked up the regulations of our conferring university, the University of London, and here’s the scoop:

University of London Regulations on Academic Dress:

Postgraduate Taught Degrees: (that’s us)
The hood shall be of black  corded silk fully  lined and edged on cowl, cape and
neckband for three-eighths of an inch with silk of the colour indicated below:
Master of Arts (MA): Russet brown
The gown shall be of black stuff or silk with long closed sleeves, the same shape as for the Cambridge MA but with the sharp angle of the ogee curve on the bottom of the sleeve rounded off.
A black cap of the square mortar-board pattern with a black tassel.  A woman may
wear a soft black (Oxford) cloth cap. (Didn’t know that - we wore our mortar boards).

All present & correct

Having filled in all the background on the fancy dress, I can report that the ceremony, though missing an inspiring Commencement Address of any kind - and, as such, I want my money back - went off free of hitches. Though just in case you were thinking otherwise, I should mention that they didn’t actually give us the degree (i.e. the bit of paper) as we promenaded across the stage. Just a handshake from the Master. They said they’d post the bit of paper later. It was like a virtual graduation ceremony, really.

Birkbeck may have skinted on Commencement addresses and bits of paper, but I must say they were generous with a wine reception afterwards, at which all pretense at sobriety - such as it was - was abandoned.

But we were philosophical about it. After all, that’s what we’re qualified for.

Celebrating with afternoon tea at The Ritz

Medieval fancy dress abandoned, but not the important traditions.

Will the sun rise tomorrow?

Valid deductive reasoning is that in which the premises provide conclusive reasons for the conclusion, and it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. A classic example is the statement that “All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal”. In contrast, inductive reasoning generally begins with a finite set of observations (or experimental results) and moves to a generalised conclusion. For example, “the sun has always risen in the morning; therefore it will rise tomorrow.” Induction amplifies what we already know. In inductive reasoning, the premises do not entail the conclusion or make it certain, but may make it reasonable. It is always reasonable to accept a deductive conclusion, but it is only arguably reasonable to accept an inductive conclusion, where many variables may affect the reasonableness of the conclusion. This problem has attracted much debate, especially as most of the decisions we make in everyday life are based squarely on inductive reasoning.

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell pointed out the importance to us of relying on inductive reasoning. If we could not rely on such reasoning, he said, “we could never extend our knowledge beyond the sphere of our private experience; and this sphere...is exceedingly limited.” According to induction, the only reason we have for assuming that the sun will rise tomorrow is that it has always done so in the past, as far as we can judge. Russell queries whether any number of cases of a law being fulfilled in the past will be sufficient evidence for it being fulfilled in the future. “If not, it becomes plain that we have no ground whatever for expecting the sun to rise tomorrow...” The belief that the sun will rise tomorrow might be falsified if a meteor crashed into the earth. A man who has been a source of food every day for a chicken may at last wring its neck instead of bringing food. Russell asks if we can find “more refined views as to the uniformity of nature”. We would like to know if “futures futures” will resemble “past futures”. Russell concludes that the inductive principle must be accepted or we will have to forgo all justification for our expectations of the future.

The reliability of induction has been argued in its defence, but such a defence cannot hold water if past evidence shows that inductions are not in fact reliably true, and there are surely many cases where people making inductions have arrived at false conclusions (like the unfortunate chicken).

Nelson Goodman

In 1955 Goodman raised a problem that seemed to show that induction is, as Papineau puts it, “downright unreliable”, known as the “green/grue” problem. Stated briefly: we reach an inductive conclusion, based on observation of all those we have seen so far, that all emeralds are green. Now suppose that we define the quality “grue” as applying to all objects which are first examined before (say) 2020 AD and found to be green OR which are examined after 2020 AD and are blue. All emeralds examined so far are thus both green and “grue”. But this cannot be true, as to be green is to be green forever; and to be “grue” is to be green now or blue after 2020 AD. We intuitively believe that the hypothesis is wrong, and that emeralds will still be green after 2020 AD; but the point of Goodman’s puzzle is to illustrate that enumerative inductions cannot always supply true conclusions, and thus cannot always be relied upon.

Green or Grue?

Strawson argued that not relying on induction was irrational. For example, if in the past one has always become wet by going out in the rain without an umbrella, it seems irrational to believe that this time one will not get wet in the rain without an umbrella. The degree of irrationality is arguably the same as believing that rain is not wet. Strawson argues that our use of the word “reasonable” includes the idea of conformance with inductive conclusions. So when we say that something (say a scientific theory) is “reasonable” we mean that it draws on an appropriate number of observed instances.

There are several ways of arriving at a decision such as “it is raining, therefore I will get wet”.  One is based on past experience – in the past when it is raining I have gotten wet – this is inductive reasoning. We could also reach the same conclusion based on the knowledge that water is wet, and so on, using deductive reasoning to reach the same conclusion. We do successfully navigate the social world and natural world. We are able to do this because we have this structure of thought; we are able to deduce, and form expectations, on the basis of conditions. Moreover, we are able to rule out defeasors – so called “Ceteris’ paribus” clauses - those independent variables which are not related to the question under decision. On this view, there arguably is no induction – our reasoning is all deduction.

One value of inductive reasoning, which cannot always be supplied by reliable deductive reasoning, is that it expands our possible knowledge base. As Papineau puts it:

The whole point of inferences is to increase our stock of knowledge. Inferences make new knowledge out of old: they take old knowledge as input, and generate new knowledge as output.

Obviously, inductive inferences that produce incorrect conclusions do not assist in furthering this increase in knowledge. Induction frequently produces false conclusions, but is it also the principal basis of our everyday reasoning upon which we rely, and with which we generally navigate the natural and social world.  We look to rely on probabilities and other yardsticks against which we can measure the reliability of our inductive inferences; but in everyday life these inductive inferences are often made intuitively. It is instructive, at least, to understand the basis upon which we make such judgement calls, and the limitations - and benefits – of doing so.

And that's your philosophy for the day. :-)

Images from:

http://blogs.chesterchronicle.co.uk/and-finally/2010/07/and-finally-the-chicken-came-b.html

http://www.wallpaper.net.au/wallpapers-landscapes-scenery3.php

http://www.bigislandjewelers.com/Pages/AllAboutEmeralds.html

http://www.massline.org/PhilosDog/G/Goodman.htm

http://www.nndb.com/people/954/000044822/

http://gabriellesgiffords.blogspot.com/2011/04/images-of-girl-in-rain.html

‘The School of Athens’. In Rome.

"The School of Athens"

I spoke of Pope Julius II and his hiring of the Renaissance master Raphael to paint frescos all over his reception and living rooms in the Vatican. In one of these rooms – the library – I was enthralled to see a whole wall covered with a painting called ‘The School of Athens’, and I must tell you more about this. It depicts the major Greek philosophers, with a little bit (well, quite a lot actually) of artistic license taken in placing figures from different eras together on the steps of a forum presumably in the Athens agora (although the architecture in the painting is fully Roman Renaissance in style). In the centre are Plato and Aristotle (Aristotle looking perhaps more deferential to his erstwhile teacher than he eventually came to be). In the foreground and surrounding the two central figures are various philosophers and mathematicians – all the big names from the Classical world.

Heraclitus (Michelangelo)

Heraclitus, he who said “you cannot step into the same river twice” is there – and he has been given the features of Michelangelo, who was painting the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel more or less next door while Raphael was working on this fresco. Plato has the features of Leonardo da Vinci, whose fame had reached Rome from Florence in the north. Euclid, the great geometer, is drawing a geometric figure on a blackboard with pupils around him, and he looks like the Renaissance architect Bramante. Diogenes, who founded the Cynical School of Philosophy, is reclining on the steps in the centre foreground, looking grumpy. Ptolemy the scientist holds a globe and Zoroaster the Persian prophet holds a celestial sphere. Pythagoras the mathematician is in one corner with young students.

You could spend ages peering at this painting (if the crick in your neck didn’t stop you - or buy the guide book with a reproduction, like I did) checking who and what is represented. The arts and the sciences are celebrated in a blend of geniuses and great minds through the centuries. Homer is said to be there somewhere, and Dante too, although I’m not sure where. Poets, musicians and their muses throng the scene.

Plato & Aristotle

Very interestingly, to a student of philosophy where one is often asked “are you a Platonist or an Aristotelian?” Plato is shown with his hand pointing to the heavens, while Aristotle is shown with his palm facing downwards to the earth. This is a reference to Plato’s metaphysics which ultimately explained the world by reference to ‘Forms’ or Ideas’ which are beyond the everyday world: real but not tangible; while Aristotle, a student of Plato’s for twenty years, rejected the ‘Forms’ and sought to explain the world solely through tangible things.

And here’s something else fascinating: Plato is carrying one of his books: it is the “Timaeus”, his most ‘scientific’ work in which he attempts an explanation of time, space and change. Aristotle is carrying his “Ethics”, possibly his least ‘scientific’ work (he said that ethics could not be reduced to mathematical formula). All this intriguingly belies the heavens/earthly interpretation of their respective hand gestures.

Above the painting is the inscription “Causarum Cognitio”  - “seek knowledge of causes” – which might be thought a kind of philosophical motto. Some say it refers particularly to Aristotle’s philosophy and that he is the central figure in the work, but they are probably Aristotelians. It is one of four great paintings in the room, and opposite is an ecclesiastical work known as “The Disputation”, about which there is also much to be said, but one has to draw the line somewhere.

Diogenes on the steps, Euclid explaining geometry,
Raphael skulking behind the archway.

There have been a lot of discussions and disputes about who is who in the painting. In the centre left is a figure in a green robe who is recognisable as Socrates – we know what he looked like from ancient busts. He is gesturing to a youthfully handsome man in soldier’s costume, standing provocatively with his hand on his hip. Some identify this figure as Alexander the Great, but others as Alcibiades. I prefer the Alcibiades identification – he was a military hero of Athens who was enamoured of Socrates, and has the great final speech in Plato’s “Symposium.”

Ptolemy & Zoroaster, Raphael in purple

Over on the far right is a figure almost out of the picture which is a self-portrait of Raphael. Some have identified him with Apelles, who was a painter in Ancient Greece. On the left, his head wreathed in vine leaves, is possibly Epicurus, a philosopher known for his scientific bent, and belief in seeking happiness (I rather like him). Even dear old Zeno is there, he of the paradoxes. The figure beside Heraclitus, and looking as if he is disagreeing with him, is speculated to be Parmenides – his view of the world as ‘one’ was famously in contradiction to Heraclitus’ view of the world as ‘many’ (to summarise very crudely). Plato has a whole book called the ‘Parmenides’, upon which I (possibly in a foolhardy moment) chose to write my first Birkbeck philosophy essay.

The Wikipedia  entry on the painting has a very useful chart identifying everybody. It also tells us that there are sketches (or ‘cartoons’) for the work, and copies of it, all over the place. How wonderful to see the original in situ in the Vatican rooms! A thoroughly absorbing picture.

The Big Guns of Philosophy

A philosophical moment

Rene Descartes

I enjoyed a happy philosophical moment the other day, when I went to a meeting with Dr Sarah Patterson (‘Early Moderns’) to discuss the many and various shortcomings of my draft essay on Descartes. This involved an ascent into her aerie on the fourth floor (no lift) of one of the row houses on Gower Street, Bloomsbury, fronted with a blue-painted door and occupied by various members of the Birkbeck Philosophy Department faculty. I arrived puffing a bit from the climb, and because I was running late (got momentarily lost in streets called ‘Virginia Close’ and Woolf Mews’).

The upshot of the problem with my essay was that it didn’t really answer the question, mainly because I became sidetracked by something I thought more interesting than the matter upon which the question focussed. The choice was to change the question or change the essay. Our solution to this was philosophical.  We decided to change the question. (This, I might note, is not an option which would generally have been available in the world of Law).

So the question: “According to Descartes, the perfection of our creator means that we cannot go wrong when we assent to what we clearly and distinctly perceive. How, then, does he account for the prevalence of human error?”

Has become: “How does Descartes’ conception of God shape his conclusions about judgement error?”  It has potentially become this, anyway, since I now have some work ahead to restructure the essay, rid from it some egregious errors, and – it seems – formulate the question any way I like.

To give you some context, in his famous ‘Meditations’ written in 1639 Descartes tries to find a method of confirming some foundational truths, such as the existence of his own self (he’s the philosopher to whom is attributed ‘cognito ergo sum’ –  loosely, ‘I think therefore I am’).  In his First meditation he considers the point that an omnipotent god could deceive him as to the very existence of the external world, or might have ‘brought it about that I too go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square’. This results in the puzzle that god, even though supremely good, nevertheless appears to permit the meditator to be at least sometimes deceived.

Later on, as Descartes develops his enquiry into this puzzle, he draws a distinction between matters of ‘privation’ and matters of ‘negation’ – terminology drawn from Aristotle, and called ‘Aristotelian jargon’ by one commentator (there is indeed a lot of jargon in Aristotle). Here’s one description of the difference: a car may be well manufactured, although it may have the comparative imperfection of not being as good as a more deluxe model (this is ‘negation’); but the same car may drive off the road not because of some defect in its manufacture but because of a careless driver (this is ‘privation’). There is no objection (says Descartes, and others) to a craftsman, or creator, making something that is less than infinitely perfect.

In fact, since we are all finite, we cannot expect that god would have created us perfectly. So ‘negation’ is acceptable and understandable and not morally reprehensible. The mere absence of good does not mean that there is evil, otherwise it would follow that non-existent things were evil.

However, if something is missing which ought to be there (such as sight in a blind man) this is ‘privation’. Errors of privation arise, says Descartes, when we humans exercise our (admittedly very broad) free will, and basically drive the car off the road.

“...the scope of the will is wider than that of the intellect; but instead of restricting it within the same limits, I extend its use to matters which I do not understand. Since the will is indifferent in such cases, it easily turns aside from what is true and good, and this is the source of my error and sin.” (Fourth Meditation).

This question of human error is endlessly fascinating.  Descartes has a few other explanations also, such as that god is running a whole universe of which we are a tiny part, and therefore we cannot expect to know whether our errors are really errors in the greater scheme of things; and he also says that our natures are ‘very weak and limited’ compared to that of god which is ‘immense’ so it is ‘no cause for surprise’ that we cannot understand all of god’s actions: considerations which resonate from the earlier medieval philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas.

Everyone wants to know why there is bad stuff in the world. I don’t think that’s too strong a statement. Some just throw up their hands and say ‘S*** happens’ or ‘it’s the Devil’s doing’.  Philosophers like to investigate further. In the course of our discussion, which strayed a little from the shortcomings of my paper, Dr Sarah said “this question of error is very interesting”, which is philosophical-speak for “I am totally in thrall to this idea and am going to spend the next year of my life investigating it”. Sure enough, she confided that she was, at that very moment (probably meaning for months before and for months to come) writing a paper on the very subject. Who better to criticise my paper on the same subject? I regard this as a very special educational privilege.

But before I leave Descartes and the (as yet) flawed paper, I should mention why it didn’t answer the question as posed. Before Descartes got to grips with the question of how error arises, he had to consider whether god in fact exists. This is another one of those questions asked by more than just philosophers, I think. The interesting thing that sidetracked me from the original question was an article I read by a philosopher named Annette Baier (how encouraging that there exists such a thing as a professional philosopher named ‘Annette’). She proposed that Descartes’ conception of ‘god’, while couched in the theological language of his day, was in fact code for something far more psychological – basically, ‘god’ to Descartes could be equated with self-consciousness (I’m not sure that this idea has taken off in philosophical circles – Dr Sarah seemed unimpressed). Baier claims that by the Third Meditation the idea of ‘god’ has become a perfect being which the meditator may aspire to imitate, rather than a mysterious powerful being whose motives can never be understood. She says that Descartes’ ‘god’ bears more resemblance to self-consciousness than to the orthodox Christian God, but that in view of the heretical nature of such a view in 1639 (in 1633 Galileo had been convicted for heresy by the Inquisition for claiming that the Earth circled the sun, and Descartes had been lying low with his own theories on that subject), and also possibly because Descartes enjoyed constructing puzzling texts, he disguised this philosophical view in the Meditations.  

That’s even more interesting, don’t you think?

In any event, it is back to the proverbial drawing board for the essay, though there is a lot to be salvaged now that I can make up my own question. I did enjoy sitting in the Gower Street aerie, asking an expert “so what about evil in the world?” and having a discussion that went beyond ‘S*** happens’. Not that we solved the problem, of course

Descartes' Life 

Images from:

http://www.citizenphilosophy.net/Rene_Descartes.html

http://allthenotesyoucaneverneedinlife.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html

http://www.realfuture.org/wordpress/?category_name=philosophy&paged=2

The Pure Fool

Parsifal: via a misunderstood Persian etymology, chosen by Wagner as the name of his ‘pure fool’.

Parsifal: sublime and confusing. On the sublime end, we have the extraordinary music of Wagner’s last opera, powering on through over four hours of music, played by a huge orchestra, sweeping us up into the myth. On the confusing end, there’s the, er, plot. Or lack thereof.

Parsifal is based, rather loosely, on one of the medieval myths of the Holy Grail. It is set in the mountains at a castle where the Knights of the Grail guard the Holy Grail (in this case, epitomised by the chalice used at the Last Supper and by Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood of Christ) and the Holy Spear (used to wound Christ on the cross).  If that’s not enough Christian imagery for you, we also have a fallen woman washing the feet of a redeemer, a massive Good Friday ritual, a lot of stuff about the sins of the flesh, and a character we might mistake for Christ himself. However, we also have plenty of Buddhist mythology, in particular a woman who is caught in Samsara, the cycle of eternal rebirth, because of some very bad karma; a big theme of renouncing selfishness (and also plenty of other pleasures), some serious ascetics and a moment of Enlightenment. Then there are a lot of Schopenhaurian themes, especially a view of the world as endless suffering and the elevation of compassion to the one great goal. Add in some dubious sexual symbology, plenty of outright magic, and some even more dubious racial purity stuff, and you have the ‘story’ of Parsifal.

One thing you cannot call it is a straightforward medieval story. You also cannot really call it a Christian myth.  Whatever it is, it is cerebral in the extreme; and the combination of the highly mythologised play with the genius of Wagner’s amazing music could easily be overwhelming.

In the production staged by the English National Opera (sung in English instead of German) the director and designer have gone for the Waste Land look. Admittedly, the Knights of the Grail are in rather a bad way when the story opens, their king Amfortas having lost the Holy Spear to the self-castrated (what to make of that?) magician Klingsor. Amfortas is left with a ghastly wound that won’t heal, but which seems to be magically and agonisingly renewed with some kind of strange blood-swapping ritual every time he reveals the Grail to the Knights. He thus wants to die pronto. However, the ritual of revealing the Grail is what ‘feeds’ the Knights, not so say his ancient father who spends his days in a funeral crypt, kept alive only by the Grail. Everybody has an agenda.

The ‘pure fool’ Parsifal appears, having shot a swan. This is apparently very bad, though it is not absolutely clear why. He seems to be particularly foolish, with no knowledge of good or evil, but kind of sweet and bear-like in a dopey way. His arrival has also been prophesied as the saviour of the situation (are you following? Is Parsifal Christ the redeemer?)

But we haven’t yet mentioned the female interest, Kundry, who made the mistake of laughing at Christ on the cross (Christian); has since been left to wander the world through history being constantly reborn into suffering (Buddhist); who is a wild woman slave to the Knights in the first act (who knows?); an evil seductive temptress working for Klingsor in the second act (general misogynism); and a silent repentant woman in nun-like wrappings washing Parsifal’s feet in the third act (a bit of everything).

Parsifal himself manages to avoid the dangers of the magician’s evil Flower Maidens (extraordinarily beautiful singing), Kundry and her weird Oedipal appeal to his memory of his mother in her seduction attempt (proto-Freud), a curse that leaves him to wander for twenty years (wanderers are big in Wagner), only to eventually return to the now pitiful community of Knights where everything is the same only worse. Here he is revealed as “the saviour of the saviour” or the “redeemer of the redeemer”, depending on the translation. And what that means has been endlessly debated.

Exhausted? Let’s turn for a minute then to the performances, and the first amongst these at the ENO must be Australian Stuart Skelton as Parsifal. His mighty, pure tenor voice was able to ring out with the big orchestra and carry Parsifal’s part wonderfully. Parsifal is on stage for a great deal of the opera, but actually sings for only about 20 minutes in total. The really big role for singing is that of Gurnemanz, the elder of the Knights. This is a massive bass role, sung in this production by Sir John Tomlinson. He has been singing the role for more than 20 years, but this is the first time he has sung it in English. He says it took him months to get it straight, having to excise the German from his memory. Apparently he did suggest a few tweaks and revisions to the English translation (by Richard Stokes). And Kundry? What a performance by Jane Dutton! She really gave it her all, from crazy wild woman of the woods, to agonised cursed one, to spooky mother-ghost, to evil seductress, to pious repentant. And in some pretty crazy costumes too.

Parsifal was Wagner’s last opera, although the ideas for it germinated over many years. For decades it was performed only at Bayreuth, and there it became a tradition (probably based on a misunderstanding) not to applaud between acts – a tradition you may come across even today at The Met in New York. Nietzsche (who had a bit of Wagner complex, since he was an adoring fan in his youth, but a great critic as he matured) ranted against Parsifal in his Genealogy of Morals (discussed in my Birkbeck class last week), principally on the basis that it was a Christian apologia and advocated suppression of ‘the drives’. It is generally thought, however, that this was rather a knee-jerk reaction to Parsifal, ignoring some of the deeper implications. At base, indeed, Wagner and Nietzsche may both have been considering the same thing: the post-Christian world which seemed the future in nineteenth century Germany. Nietzsche, with his vision of ‘the death of god’, looked right beyond Christianity to what would or could come next. In Parsifal, Wagner could be said to be considering the post-Christian world but with the retention of Christian symbolism. Much of Parsifal is obviously about myth, ritual and ceremony, and is actually a very interesting exploration of the role of these things.

Alain Badiou, a contemporary French philosopher and Wagner nut besides, has some interesting things to say about this aspect (and others) of Parsifal. He quotes Mallarmé: ‘Magnificence, of one sort or another, will unfold, analogous to the Shadow of yore.’ ‘The Shadow of yore’ is a reference to “the exhausted nature of nineteenth-century Christianity” (as Badiou puts it); and ‘magnificence’ refers to what might be sublated through ceremony. As to what Wagner does with ceremony in Parsifal, consider the substitutions, the formality of the action, the fulfilment of prophecy; the substitution of Parsifal as celebrant of the ceremony from Amfortas and his half-dead father (the passing on of powers). There are a lot of themes here that are far from being medieval – in fact, they are essentially nineteenth century European, that seething maelstrom of a century when science and romanticism and the enlightenment and religion and nationalism and art imploded into what became the rather hideous twentieth century.

Uh-oh. Sounds like I have been reading too much Nietzsche and hearing too much Wagner.

Let me round off with some quotes from Badiou’s comments, which may leave you intrigued, whether you have or have not ever seen a performance of Parsifal:

...you have to admit that playing Parsifal is very hard, a real bear, as a rule, especially when the singer is a big tub of a 65-year-old. He has an even harder job of it than a fat Siegfried, and that is already hard enough to pull off!

Directors, incidentally, often alter the setting: they present the castle in ruins, or even a dilapidated old blockhouse with abandoned railway tracks, or other things of the sort. Such changes are indefensible unless they are in service of the Idea itself.

Badiou has apparently seen the production presented by the ENO, or one very like it, where the ruined blockhouse and the disused railway tracks created a suitable end-of-time ambience, but were otherwise a bit puzzling.

Now, however, music has become a solitary religion. At big rock concerts the yearning for ceremony is blatant. You feel it intensely when you see how young people of all stripes share this deep yearning for ceremony. Except that it is parody; it never manages...to get beyond parody, yet that is what it is clearly attempting to do. Music was once the ‘last and most complete human religion’, but it has turned out to be a religion in as sorry a state as the Brotherhood of the Knights in Act I of Parsifal. It has ended up being about having earphones in your ears – portable music players! Obviously nothing could be further removed from ceremony than a portable music player. The ceremony is a meeting in a specific place; it is the constitution of a place, whereas the portable music player is music devoid of place.

And so, as I firmly believe, ceremony is necessary. It is probably both necessary and impossible today, but that is not a serious problem; that is the way things often are. Genuine problems are like that, both necessary and impossible. And possibility arrives right when you no longer expect it. That is what an event is...

Badiou’s concept of ‘event’ is a central idea in his own philosophy, but you won’t find that being studied in the hotbed of analytic philosophy that is London, where the “S knows p if and only if” crowd hold sway. But now I’ve strayed rather far from Parsifal. Or have I?

Alain Badiou, ‘Five Lessons on Wagner’ (Verso, 2010)

Image from: http://www.london.diplo.de/Vertretung/london/en/__events/2011/Music/ENO/Parsifal__Vseite.html

The brain in the vat

I haven’t, so far, burdened you with news of my Epistemology class, fraught as it is with scepticism, realism, anti-realism, a priori knowledge, foundationalism, coherentism, internalism, externalism, semantic externalism, contextualism, invariantism....arrgghhhh!!!!! But recently some of these –isms were brought into focus through the consideration of a rather popular philosophical thought experiment known as ‘the brain in the vat’ (or BIV to its friends). Epistemology is the study of knowledge: what it is, how we get it, how we know we know anything, and other such interesting and fundamental issues.

In the ‘brain in the vat’ scenario, you are to imagine a brain which is en-vatted in a nutritive liquor, perhaps by a mad scientist, perhaps it just evolved that way; and it is hooked up to a computer which sends signals to it along its neural pathways. These signals reproduce exactly the sensations and thoughts that the brain would have if it was at home in a human body. Now, say this BIV had a thought of a tree. Say you have a thought of a tree. Qualitatively, the two thoughts are the same, because the computer has sent signals to the BIV which ensure that. Can we – should we – conclude that the two thoughts, yours and the BIV’s, are identical?

A philosopher who is a Semantic Externalist will say ‘no’. And his or her reason will be because the thought of a tree is meaningless unless it is caused by the external experience of a tree. In other words, your thought of the tree is informed by, referenced by, your having seen a tree at some time. The BIV’s thought of the tree is not caused by any such reference.

Why does this matter? I hear you ask. Actually, this is pretty fundamental. The problem in Epistemology is a pesky character named The Sceptic. This character is sometimes personified in a renegade philosopher, sometimes in a member of the doubting laity (such as your good self, perhaps). But even if only theoretical, The Sceptic is always there. He or she is the person who asks: ‘but how do you know that?’ One of his/her favourite questions is: ‘how do you know the external world exists?’ How do you know you have a hand? How do you know there is a tree there? How do you know you are not just dreaming? Or hallucinating? How do you know that an Evil Demon (or deceiving god) hasn’t taken you over and implanted these false ideas in your mind?

You think this sounds too weird to be bothered about? have a look at this particularly weird website.  I also refer you to the movie ‘The Matrix’, which was based on the hypothesis that the entire human race had been placed into giant vats and fed a virtual reality at the hands of a malignant artificial intelligence. You might also consider ‘The Truman Show’. How do you know you aren’t in one of those situations?

Jim Carey wonders...

Unless we can show that the ‘brain in a vat’ premise is wrong, we can’t refute the sceptic who says: ‘but how do you know that what you think you see, even what you think you think, is reality?’ The BIV scenario also throws up interesting features about the relation between mind and world, and meaning and reality, which get a lot of philosophers excited, if no-one else.

So what about the Semantic Externalist who says that the BIV hasn’t really had a ‘thought’ about a tree, because it has never experienced a tree? How does this help us refute the sceptic? If you’ll just bear with me, I now have to bring in a teensy weensy syllogism or two. This is a version of the sceptic’s argument:

1.       You do not know that you are not a brain in a vat.

2.       If you do not know that you are not a brain in a vat then you do not know that you are currently drinking water.

3.       So, you do not know that you are currently drinking water.

To overcome this valid and seemingly true logical argument, it is necessary to attack either (or both) the first or second premise. For example, you could try attacking the first premise by arguing that the mind is a complex physical system and it is not possible for your mind to exist in a matterless world (you would then be called a ‘Materialist’). You could also argue that the second premise is not logically sound.

Perhaps the anti-sceptic could come back with:

1.       I think that water is wet.

2.       No brain in a vat can think that water is wet.

3.       So, I am not a brain in a vat.

You will notice that to support premise 2 above, it is helpful to argue that the BIV’s ‘thoughts’ are not causally based and therefore it does not ‘know’ that water is wet.

Have I lost you? I think I’ve had enough myself....If you want to read more about it, the Wikipedia short-version is here; and a more scholarly Stanford Encyclopedia entry is here. 

My Epistemology lectures are given by A C Grayling, whom I have mentioned before on this blog. The lectures are erudite, swift (we have never yet filled the allotted two hours) and – to me - obscure. Professor Grayling now and then says airily “as you will know from your undergraduate epistemology...” Yeek! Since I don’t have any undergraduate epistemology, this necessitates a lot of back-reading and furious study between lectures. I make frantic notes about things I’ve never heard of (Gettier problems? What’s a Gettier problem?) and dash home to look them up. Not all of them are as dramatically interesting as the brain in a vat.

The Prof.

This week Professor Grayling favoured the class with a glimpse of his new book, forthcoming in April. It is called “The Good Book – A Humanist Bible”. It is a large hard-cover tome, vying with The Bible in terms of door-stopping usefulness. He explained that The Bible is (as you probably know) a collection of a wide variety of documents from antiquity, put together by many different authors, and heavily redacted – that means cut and pasted, inserted and rearranged, with, as Professor Grayling put it, inconvenient ‘nots’ removed: edited, in a word. He has followed the same process with his Humanists’ Bible, drawing on many historical texts, ‘shamelessly plagiarising’, as he also put it. He too has redacted and edited and re-arranged these texts. His criteria was that none of those he chose should refer to a divine being, or encourage adherence to the word of a divine being, or promise an afterlife. He told us there was a lot of good stuff in it...I will naturally snap up a copy when it hits the shops.

The book is already on on-line bookshop sites fro pre-order. Here's the blurb:

Drawing on the wisdom of 2,500 years of contemplative non-religious writing on all that it means to be human - from the origins of the universe to small matters of courtesy and kindness in everyday life - A.C. Grayling, Britain's most popular and widely read philosopher, has created a secular bible. Designed to be read as narrative and also to be dipped into for inspiration, encouragement and consolation, "The Good Book" offers a thoughtful, non-religious alternative to the many people who do not follow one of the world's great religions. Instead, going back to traditions older than Christianity, and far richer and more various, including the non-theistic philosophical and literary schools of the great civilisations of both West and East, from the Greek philosophy of classical antiquity and its contemporaneous Confucian, Mencian and Mohist schools in China, down through classical Rome, the flourishing of Indian and Arab worlds, the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, the worldwide scientific discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries to the present, Grayling collects, edits, rearranges and organises the collective secular wisdom of the world in one highly readable volume. Contents of this title include: "Genesis"; "Proverbs"; "Histories"; "Songs"; "Wisdom Acts"; "The Lawgiver Lamentations"; "Concord Consolations"; "Sages"; and, "The Good Parables".

He told us that his 'Genesis' begins with the apple falling from the tree in Newton's garden.

Meanwhile, Professor Grayling hasn’t yet issued any essay questions for Epistemology, which on the one hand means I don’t have to start the essay struggle; but on the other hand is merely putting off the evil day. Perhaps I am just a brain in a vat and none of this is real.

Images from:

http://www.manoneileen.com/2011/02/25/intelligence-1/

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-thought-experiments.php/brain-in-a-vat

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/a-c-+grayling/the+good+book/7927053/