Lev Shestov - Potestas Clavium - Part II

     What must a man do to penetrate into the mysterious domain of philosophy? Schelling says: Der erste Schritt zur Philosophie und die Bedingung, ohne welche man auch nicht einmal in sie hineinkommen kann, ist die Einsicht: dass das absolut Ideale auch das absolut Reale sei [The first step to philosophy and the condition without which one could not arrive at it at all is this insight: that the absolutely ideal is also the absolutely real]. That is, as long as a man will not understand that the absolutely ideal is also the absolutely real, he will not be able even to approach philosophy. On the same subject Hegel writes: Wenn man anfängt zu philosophieren, muss die Seele zuerst such in diesem Aether der Einen Substanz baden, in der Alles, wass man für wahr gehalten hat, untergegangen ist; diese Negation alles Besondern, zu der die Philosophie gekommen sein muss, ist die Befreiung des Geistes und seine absolute Grundlage [When one begins to philosophize, the soul must first of all bathe itself in the ether of the one substance in which everything that one has taken to be true has been dissolved; this negation of everything particular to which philosophy must come is the liberation of the spirit and its absolute foundation]. That is to say, for Hegel the beginning of philosophy consists in the soul's plunging into the ether of the unique substance; it is in this that the deliverance of the soul and its absolute principle consists.

     We could certainly find among the ancients statements that are very close to those of Schelling and Hegel. But in Plato and Aristotle we also find statements of a quite different character. Plato says: mala gar philosophou toûto to pathos, to thaumadzein. ou gar allê archê philosophias ê hautê, which means, "The faculty of being astonished is particularly appropriate to the philosopher, and outside this faculty there is no other origin for philosophy" (Th. 155D). Aristotle shares the same opinion: dia to thaumadzein hoi anthrôpoi kai to nûn kai to prôton êrksanto philosopheîn, that is, "both now and formerly men always began to philosophize through wonder or astonishment."

     As for Schopenhauer, he is certain that a man becomes a philosopher only and for as long as he feels that the world "is his representation." He who has not become aware of this truth cannot be and will never become a philosopher. Schopenhauer believed, furthermore, that he had found this peculiar conception of philosophy in the works of Kant. From everything that Kant wrote, Schopenhauer took only this idea, which is not really to be found in Kant. At present philosophy is extremely ill-disposed to Kant and his phenomenalism. The slogan of modern philosophy is ontology. But one need examine modern ontology only a little more closely to become convinced that it is not so distant from Kant as it imagines, that it is even very close to him and continues to follow the same rut into which Kant fell without wishing it. The problem remains always the same: to justify, by all possible means, reason and its sovereign rights. The strange thing is that the phenomenalist Schopenhauer seeks to attain through the visible world the invisible essences much more passionately than the ontologists who are so sure of themselves. It is obvious that our oppositions finally do not express much: the difference between theoretical ontologism and theoretical phenomenalism is no greater than between St. Augustine's amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui and amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei. It may be that it is not possible and not necessary to break all the relationships between ontologism and phenomenalism: both come from God. And amor Dei certainly does not necessarily presuppose contemptum sui, just as amor sui does not demand contemptum Dei. Love for one's family and for one's country often imposes upon man, under the conditions of our actual existence, scorn and hatred for the family of others and for the neighboring country. For men are always obliged to distribute, and it is necessary to choose between one's own family and that of others. But with God it is not a question of sharing: one can love Him without this love demanding the renunciation of self, in the ordinary sense of the word. Moreover, love of God is incompatible with contempt for self. One can also love the invisible world without rejecting the visible world.

     But in the philosophy which lives on concepts and seeks its ideals in pure concepts, in the philosophy which is constructed on the model of mathematics, contradictions are inevitable. The squaring of the circle is impossible. The circle loves itself usque ad contemptum of the square, and the square loves itself usque ad contemptum of the circle. And as long as philosophy holds its gaze fixed on the world of ideal essences and on mathematics as the science of ideal essences kat'eksochên [pre-eminently], philosophy will be a science and assume that verum index est sui et falsi [truth is the index of itself and of what is false] and that verum and falsum are irreconcilables to such a degree that if one does not flee the false, one will never arrive at the true. Here is why, in opposition to the rationalist philosophers, it must be said that philosophy does not begin when man finds an indubitable criterion of truth. On the contrary, philosophy will begin only when man has lost all criteria of truth, when he feels that he cannot have any criteria and that there is even no need of any.

     Likewise a sleeper will awake not when he has become convinced that his sleep-consciousness is the unity of all that exists or the identity of thought and being (for sleep also has its logic; in sleep men also aspire to "unity" and to the identification of thought and reality: it is necessary to keep this well in mind), but only when he will become convinced that he sleeps and that his dreams are not all of reality but merely a small part separated from the rest, or even only the presentiment of reality. In the state of waking we are obviously less bound than in sleep.

     But we are also far from free when we are awake. And as long as man does not feel this directly, as long as he is convinced that the state of waking is absolutely contrary to that of sleep, that only when he is awake is he free, and that his freedom is expressed in the creative work of that best part of his being which is called reason - he is still not a philosopher.

     One must not stupefy one's own mind through "explanations," even metaphysical explanations, of the enigmas of being but, on the contrary, try to remain awake. Now, to awaken it is necessary that man become painfully aware of the chains that sleep imposes upon him. It is necessary that he recognize that it is precisely reason, which we are accustomed to consider as a liberating force and one capable of awakening us, which keeps us in the state of torpor. It may be that asceticism and the enigmatic tortures it imposes are the expression of that unconscious élan toward awakening which lives in the heart of man, while rational philosophy is born out of man's need not to pass beyond the limits of a partial awakening in this life. But another supposition may also be admitted. It may be that the irreconcilable hostility that exists between the rationalistic philosophers and the misologoi (to use Platonic language) comes from a still deeper source. It may be that men are pushed toward this or that philosophy by their metaphysical predestination. We must not have too much confidence in the methods of ordinary reflection that operates through general ideas. It is very risky to consider hô anthrôpos and tis anthrôpos - that is to say, man in general and this particular man, exclusively from the point of view of their logical relationship, the first containing in himself the second.

     Non includit contradictionem, as the Scholastics liked to express themselves, that some tis anthrôpos possesses a predicate which excludes all possibility of being brought into the species ho anthrôpos. Certainly if some concrete individual is found to have only one arm or one leg, while man in general must have two, or if he is blind, deaf or mute, this will not at all prevent us from including him in the species man. But if someone were born with wings or with two heads, would we still be able to call him "man"? Or if someone possessed the faculty of transforming himself into some animal at will or of contemplating the past and future as clearly as we see the present? I shall be told that this has never happened and never can happen. I answer that not only have you no right to affirm that it cannot happen but you do not even know if it never has happened. You have never seen it - that is all. But there are many things that you have never seen. We do not see, and that very often even, what happens under our very eyes. We do not wish to see it because it is not fitting or because our soul does not presently accept it. At times, however, it would be well to see not only what is but also what is not and what has never been. If we wish to develop our faculty of perceiving the world we must give full freedom to our fantasy. We must "think" of beings with two or three heads or even without any head at all, of clairvoyant beings, etc. We must go even further: we know that the empirical destinies of men are very different. Some are born Alexanders and Platos, others, idiots and devoid of all talent. Why are we so sure that inequality is possible only in the empirical world? It is very probable that the metaphysical destinies of men are also extremely different. To one person it is given to live only once; he appeared for the first and last time by being born into this world; he has neither past nor future. He must make haste to eat his fill of days during his short existence on this earth between birth and death. His motto is carpe diem; he is always in a hurry. That is why he is a positivist and immanentist. Nothing exists and nothing can exist for him outside what he has here at hand. He wishes to see even God here (the men of the Middle Ages called this fruitio Dei), for he feels that if he does not see God here, he will never see Him anywhere. It is, indeed, not only atheists who are positivists; believers are no less inclined to positivism at times, as the history of Catholicism and many other histories show.

     Positivism is certainly right as far as it goes. It is wrong only when it generalizes its statements by declaring that they apply to hô anthrôpos and not to tis anthrôpos. But there is perhaps a man or men who have already existed more than once, who are called to exist again after their death. The soul which Lermontov's angel carried in his arms and which before appearing in this world had already heard celestial melodies is also an anthrôpos, like the soul which was conceived naturally, developed in its mother's womb and heard, at birth, not the singing of angels but its own plaintive cry! It is completely impossible to unite in one and the same species two "objects" so different from each other. The fact that the two souls have similar bodies, that they both live on earth, pay taxes, learn grammar, and earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, does not suffice to justify treating them equally. The whale, for example, appears to be a fish. It lives in the sea, it has the tail of a fish, in short it has everything a fish has, and yet only ignorant and uneducated people call it a fish. Well, I think that when we speak of hô anthrôpos, man, it is as if we forced into the concept of fish not only the whale but also lions, tigers, and royal eagles.

     What to do? How manage to avoid errors that are shameful and fatal in their consequences? I think we must begin by not taking mathematics as the model of philosophic knowledge. I know this is difficult, but it is just as difficult if we do take mathematics for a model. Spinoza himself who, indeed, constructed his philosophy more geometrico [in the geometric fashion], ends his Ethics with these words: sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia, quam rara sunt [but all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare]. But in the same Spinoza, philosophy resembles mathematics only externally. In reality it is philosophy, which means that almost everything in it that needs be demonstrated remains undemonstrated, and, on the other hand, only what can be admitted without demonstration is demonstrated.

     But this is still only the beginning. The further one goes, the greater the difficulties become. But why calculate them here? If it were I who had thought out the difficulties, I would have to justify myself and bargain. But I am to be left out of the question here, just as are you, my reader. If you wish to blame anyone, address yourself to Him who created this life that is so fantastic, so peculiar, so unnatural, that does not permit itself to be enclosed either in the formulas of mathematics or in general concepts.

     Furthermore, it must be noted that the term "difficult" is very relative. It is difficult for a small child to smoke and drink alcohol, but many an adult would give up eating if only he had a pipe and a good bottle. And now, let me be allowed to quote a very famous philosopher, Plotinus. Hê de andreia aphobia thanatou. ho d'esti chôris eînai tên psychên toû sômatos. ou phobeîtai de toûto, hos agapâi monos genesthai. So speaks Plotinus, and I think that if one does not interpret them according to the ordinary methods of our "understanding," the meaning of his words cannot be in doubt. "Courage consists in not fearing death. Death is the separation of the soul from the body [this is the customary definition of death in Plato. Cf. Phaedo 64E and Gorgias 254B]. He will not dread this separation who loves to be alone." [Enneads I, VI, 6. My translation is not literal. But it conforms, I believe, to the spirit of the Plotinian philosophy].

     People will tell me - or they will not tell me, it is I who will tell myself - that Plotinus was a decadent in philosophy. So? A decadent - then no longer a fish but a whale? Such a tis anthrôpos that it is impossible to force him into the concept of ho anthrôpos? You do not agree? You say that he was nevertheless only an anthrôpos who was mistaken? You must necessarily say this in order to preserve the traditional philosophy. And I even helped you by suggesting to you that Plotinus was a decadent. But, then, he must be separated from the tradition of philosophy and examined apart. But even if you wish to reject him, you will perhaps nevertheless not refuse to listen to how the whale converses with fishes?

     Why, then, does he only who "loves" to be alone not fear death? Precisely "loves"; he not only dares but wishes it. This means precisely that tis anthrôpos escapes from ho anthrôpos, just as a butterfly leaves the chrysalis, and will not for anything in the world go back into the prison of the general idea. He was a man like all others who easily found a place in the universals that had been determined for him. But suddenly some mysterious, unknown force drives him out of his customary domicile without even telling him where it proposes to lead him.

     A strange thing! The decadents of all times, including our contemporary Nietzsche, tried to fight against destiny, against the fate determined for them. Nietzsche, like Plotinus, made desperate efforts to recover his place in ho anthrôpos. But fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt [the Fates lead the willing man, the unwilling they drag]. There is no choice for man. Once he has fallen out of his "species" he cannot return to it.

     And now listen to the testimony of some of these tis anthrôpos. Nietzsche speaks to us of the Eternal Return: he has already been on earth an infinite number of times and will return to it an infinite number of times. Plotinus also had always existed in the One, and he announces in inspired words that soon, after his death, he will return to the kingdom where he was before his birth. It is clear that both of them speak the truth (though their statements, from our point of view, are mutually exclusive), that their metaphysical destinies were different. And it is clear also that the metamorphoses which await them are so different that it is absolutely impossible to reduce both of them to the same type, the same kind of being, without destroying the fundamental rules of classification or, rather, without deliberately violating them. And certainly one cannot in any case reduce them to the type anthrôpos, if we include in it, for example, Haeckel, who knows definitely that he is descended from an ape and who is so certain of it that, without the least hesitation, he considers Nietzsche's and Plotinus' statements absurdities.

     These examples, it seems to me, reveal with sufficient clarity the fundamental defect of rationalistic thought, that thought which is de facto considered the only possible one by the representatives of all philosophical systems, whatever their differences in all other respects may be.

     Let us listen to what Spinoza says in one of his letters (LXXIV): Ego non praesumo, me optimam invenisse philosophiam, sed veram me intelligere scio. Quomodo autem id sciam, si roges, respondebo, eodem modo ac tu scis trea angulos trianguli aequales esse duobus rectis; et hoc sufficire negabit nemo, cui sanum est cerebrum. And every philosopher must repeat after Spinoza: "I do not suppose that I have found the best philosophy, but I know that I have recognized the true philosophy. And if you ask me how I know this, I shall answer, in the same way that you know that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. And that this is sufficient, no one who has a healthy mind will deny." Spinoza is simply more daring, frank, and consistent than the other philosophers. It was also he who said: Ea enim omnia, quae clare et distincte intellegimus, Dei idea (ut modo indicavimus) et natura nobis dictat, non quidem verbis, sed modo longe excellentiore et qui cum natura mentis optime convenit, ut unusquisque, qui certitudinem intellectus gustavit, apud se sine dubio expertus est [Now all the things which we understand clearly and distinctly, the idea of God (as we have just now indicated) and nature dictate to us, not indeed by words, but in a way far more excellent and one which agrees best with the nature of the mind, as every one who has tasted the certitude of the intellect has doubtless experienced within himself] (Tract. Theol.Polit., I, 5). And finally: Qui veram habet ideam, simul scit se veram habere ideam, nec de rei veritate potest dubitare [He who has a true idea at the same time knows that he has a true idea, nor can he doubt the truth of the thing.](Eth. II, XLIII)

     I repeat and emphasize expressly: these statements of Spinoza are the true postulates of the thought of all those who believe that every tis anthrôpos finds a place in ho anthrôpos. And since I have never as yet met any philosopher who did not base himself on this postulate as on a self-evident truth, all the philosophers appear to be Spinozists. All of them, and the theologians also - for example, St. Augustine. The only exception - but only for a moment - is offered us by Tertullian in his well-known statement that shocks even the Catholic theologians but is worthy of being recalled as often as possible: Crucifixus est Dei filius; non pudet quia pudendum est. Et mortuus est Dei filius; prorsus credibile est quia ineptum est. Et sepultus ressurexit; certum est quia impossibile est [The Son of God was crucified; it does not cause shame because it must shame us. And the Son of God died; again, it is credible because it is absurd. And having been buried, he arose again; it is certain because it is impossible.] (De Carne Christi, V)

     Apart from Tertullian I do not know of anyone in the philosophic literature who experienced, even if only for a moment, a similar illumination, permitting him to rid himself of the "commandments of reason." All wish, on general principles, gustare certitudinem intellectus [to taste the certitude of the intellect]; everyone who has a vera idea, simul scit se veram habere ideam, [a true idea at the same time knows that he has a true idea] and knows it for the same reason that he knows that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. Here is something to think about. If I have a true idea about something, I know at the same time that I have a true idea and can no longer doubt it. This is certainly not a simple tautology; Spinoza's formulas are extremely cautious and consistent. Spinoza wished to express in his theorem the same thought that is found in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus: there is a certain state of mind, certitudo, which is born in man in connection with the appearance in him of a true idea and which, insofar as it puts an end to all doubts, is the proof and result of the discovery of the truth for all alike. It is clear that every philosopher who seeks the one truth for all must share Spinoza's thought. Otherwise, that seeker is not a philosopher.

     But let us pass from general rules to particular cases. Let us ask, in other words, how Spinoza's theorem was applied in practice. The best method is to examine the truths found by Spinoza himself. Already in his Cogitata Metaphysica, in the paragraph entitled Dari voluntatem, Spinoza stops at the famous question of Buridan's ass. What would happen to a starving ass if it found itself at an equal distance between two bales of hay? And what would a man do if he found himself in a situation analogous to that of Buridan's ass? Spinoza answers without hesitation: si enim hominem loco asinae ponamus in tali aequilibrio positum, homo non pro re cogitante, sed pro turpissimo asino erit habendus, si fame et siti pereat [for if we should put a man in the same place as the ass and in a similar equilibrium, the man must be considered not a thinking being but a very stupid ass if he would perish of hunger and thirst] (Cogit. Met., II, XII). Several years later Spinoza in his Ethics again finds himself before this question and gives it an exactly opposite answer: Dico, me omnino concedere, quod homo in talio aequilibrio positus (nempe qui nihil aliud percipit, quam sitim et famem, talem cibum et talem potum, qui aeque ab eo distant) fame et siti peribit [I say, I wholly admit that a man placed in such an equilibrium (namely, as perceiving nothing but hunger and thirst, a certain food and a certain drink, each equally distant from him) would perish of hunger and thirst] (Eth., II, XLIX, Scholium). This means, brushing aside metaphors, that Spinoza in the first case affirmed the truth that the will is free and in the second case that it is not free. And in both cases he made his affirmation with perfect certainty, feeling undoubtedly the sentiment of which he said, unusquisque, qui certitudinem gustavit, apud se sino dubio expertus est.

     What is involved here? If the same man, though at different moments (I say at different moments but the question may be posed in a wider fashion), sees the predicates of truth as such in judgments that are mutually exclusive, can these predicates be considered as belonging properly to truth, i.e., as distinguishing it from error? Either the will of man is free or it is not free. Nevertheless Spinoza gustavit certitudinem both when he adopted the positive answer and when he accepted the negative answer to this question. And I assume that unusquisque apud se sine dubio expertus est - that everyone has more than once experienced the same thing as Spinoza.

     It follows with complete clarity from this example that we gustamus certitudinem not necessarily in direct connection with the knowledge of truth, that the feeling of certitude is autonomous and satisfies itself, that it comes and goes independently of whether we have found truth or error, and that it has nothing to do with the question whether in general there is any possibility of discovering any truth whatsoever. Spinoza, like every rationalist, i.e., every man who wishes under all circumstances at any price to understand everything that exists by his own powers, had recourse to a generalization that is completely unnecessary and impermissible. Certainly everyone knows through his own experience that the statement, the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, is accompanied by certitudo. But there is no reason to conclude from this that every certitudo is conditioned by the discovery of a truth. Our old whale again protests and is unwilling to be found in the company of the fish. There is certitudo and certitudo. There are, indeed, certitudes that are born from the grasping of truth, but there are others that derive from quite different parentage. One can even very well admit generatio aequivoca, spontaneous generation. And there is no reason to deny the possibility of certitude as a gracious gift of heaven, as gratia and precisely gratia gratis data, awarded not in recompense for our merits but through the great mercy of God and also (and this, to my mind, is most correct) in punishment for our sins.

     Look at the uneducated people who are sure that the earth does not move, that the sun circles the earth, and that the moon moves through the clouds - as sure as we are of our truths. Whence comes their certitudo, when it is assuredly known that they are in error? And even we educated people - do we not admire the blue canopy of the heavens, having understood long ago that there is no canopy? The rationalist does not take account of this. He wishes to be proud and will accept nothing freely, or pretends in any case not to do so: if he possesses any certainty, he has obtained it himself. This is why Descartes repeated so obstinately that God could not deceive men. It seemed to him that if God could deceive men, everything was lost. But, first, he was factually wrong. God does deceive men. The Bible speaks of it often, and we can convince ourselves of it with our own eyes at every step. Recall the examples quoted above about the earth, the sun, the clouds. If God had organized our sight differently, we should not have had to wait thousands of years for the appearance of Copernicus to renounce the illusion of the geocentric system. But God, it seems, wished that we admire the sun and the skies and was not at all afraid to veil the truth through beauty. Man may not lie but God may, for to Him everything is permitted. The rationalists are unwilling to admit a deceiving God, for they do not trust God Himself very much. They wish to make their own reason divine and omnipotent. And, furthermore, it is not even this. In reality they are much more honest. It is perfectly sufficient for them to think that their reason is divine. That is why they never feel troubled by the fact that there are so many divine reasons. They simply ignore this. Each repeats with assurance: "I am right, I have the truth," as if he were deaf from birth and never heard his neighbor cry shrilly the same words, "I am right, I have the truth," even though his truth be a completely different one. It is clear that no one here is concerned with truth, that it is a question of completely other goods, that now as always man remains the same crude egotist that he was in prehistoric times, in the Stone and Bronze Ages.

     Contrary, then, to what Hegel and Schelling said, it must be said that man begins to philosophize not when he understands that the absolutely ideal is the absolutely real or that everything is one but, on the contrary, when he drives such ideas beyond the threshold of his consciousness. Plato and Aristotle were much closer to the truth with their dia to thaumadzein, and Schopenhauer was closer still when he affirmed that the world was his idea. It is only when we feel - dia to thaumadzein - that the world we know is only our idea, that certitudo is possible only in sleep and that the more solid the certitudo the more heavy and deep is our sleep, that we can have any hope of awakening. As long as we "know," as long as we "understand," we sleep - and all the more strongly as our judgments are more "clear and distinct," more apodictic. Men must grasp this if they are destined to awaken on earth. But it seems that such is not their destiny. Very few of them, in any case, are so destined, and even these will only half awaken. The great majority die sleeping, just as they have lived sleeping.

     So, then, the beginning of philosophy is thaûma, wonder, but a thaûma which never leads to athaumasia [ability not to be amazed (Strabo, Geo.I,3,21)], the philosophic ideal of Democritus.