The intelligentsia of our time
still operates under
the assumption that any theoretical work should grasp the
universal―that
is, that it should settle the flux of reality into concepts. As Social
Sciences
tabulate statistical data in order to associate their endeavours with
those of
mathematicians and physicians, knowledge appears to be the product of a
chronological discovery. Scholars quote exhaustively each other in
specialised
journals and newspapers to reassure readers and students of their
progress and
co-operative effort. A writer who ignores this linear progression is
regarded
with suspicion. He relies on the particular―on existence.
The distinction between art and
philosophy is
entirely academic. It dates back―as most philosophical mishaps, to
Greece. Plato―according to Diogenes Laertius, wrote several lyric poems
and tragedies. But his voice was feeble―a serious impediment for a
playwright obliged to sing and perform his own verses. He was about to
contend
for a prize in tragedy during the Dyionisian Festival when he met
Socrates. The
histrionic impediments of Plato or the persuasive gifts of his new
acquaintance
drove him to burn his verses and to apply his days and nights to the
study of
philosophy.
Plato institutionalised
philosophy as a profession;
he founded the Academy and travel to Syracuse to carry out his
political
theory. From his early dialogues he attacked the philosophy of poetry:
«I went to the poets… I took
them some of the most
elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the
meaning of
them - thinking that they would teach me something. Will you believe
me? I am
almost ashamed to speak of this, but still I must say that there is
hardly a
person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than
they
did themselves. That showed me in an instant that not by wisdom do
poets write
poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners
or
soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the
meaning of
them[1]».
Socrates demanded clear
definitions from his
interlocutors. But definitions rely on single
general perceptions. A concept taken out of
context presents
fissures and
contradictions. The Athenian poets, politicians or fellow philosophers
who
dared to comply to Socrates' demand were promptly refuted by his
questions.
Socrates and Plato wanted to
dictate a stable,
reliable and universal truth to their fellow countrymen. But the
ideology of
mathematics differs from the ideology of the Academy. Mathematical
formulae
adapt to new variants and circumstances. Political theory is reluctant
to
change; the alteration of a given social system implies a contradiction
within
the system. The downfall of a empire
occurs when a political elite struggles to adapt outdated political
principles
to new social conditions. In their search for a universal discourse,
Socrates
associated knowledge to politics; his main purpose―as Aristotle pointed
out, was ethical:
«Socrates… was busying himself
about ethical matters
and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal
in
these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on
definitions;
Plato accepted his teaching, but held that the problem applied not to
sensible
things but to entities of another kind-for this reason, that the common
definition could not be a definition of any sensible thing, as they
were always
changing[2]».
Aristotle pursued fixed thought
on definitions as
well, paying special attention to 'sensible things'. He considered
poetry more
philosophical than history, and yet he reduced the inspiration of poets
to the
invention of myths. What is common to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle is
their
search for a stable and absolute unity. But stability and absoluteness
are
contrary to the multifarious manifestations of life, as Karl Scheffler
writes
in a beautiful essay:
«'We do not
travel to arrive',
says Goethe… The
journey is pleasant for those who are willing to undertake it―for those
who recognise in their path the main purpose of their journey. What is
essential is the climbing the mountain. The view from the top is rather
disappointing. Who looks for the fineness of nature―its manifestations
and mighty effects, will joyfully discover in his path the pleasant
whispers of
the present. He will achieve a regular and lasting happiness―a serene
and
vivid happiness. The rambler finds his fate in his very path; nothing
disappoints
him, for he discovers the world in every casual circumstance. In the same way we, wanderers of life,
should manage our soul. Fate would never be so heavy against us as it
is
against those who long for a final respite to their efforts[3]».
Poetry has been dialectical from
its very onset, but
it never longed for an absolute understanding of reality. For centuries
the
dialectics of poetry have been more influential than the dialectics of
philosophy. The greatest ethical changes in history have been promoted
by poets
and novelists, rather than by philosophers. The New Testament describes
a
society where all men and woman are equal (Luke 20, 36), a dialectical
judgement able to justify the most
influential social revolutions of the past two thousand years. About twenty years ago Kundera mentioned
with circumspection that Cervantes―rather than Descartes, was the first
and greatest writer of Modernity. His claim has been most discreetly
ignored―for the Academy cannot accept within its marble precincts the
meagre presence of a madman and the obese silhouette of a glutton.
Poets analyse the particular,
its accidents and
moods, e.g., whereas a historian or philosopher may discuss whether
Creon, King
of Thebes, was wicked or kind, Sophocles ponders according to each
particular
context. Creon was kind, as Oedipus recognised it at some point in his
life:
...Bless
you, Creon!
May God watch
over you for this kindness,
better than he
ever guards me[4]
But then he became cruel:
You and your
wicked way with words, Creon--
I've never known
an honest man
who can plead so
well for any plea whatever[5]
Complexity, rather than unity,
is the essence of any
literary work. Philosophers are used to hinder each other in their
search for
the hydra of unity. Poets, on the other hand, enquire with compassion
on the
abysms of existence:
I've much to ask,
so much to learn,
so much
fascinates my eyes,
but you... I
shudder at the sight[6]
An artist wades on the waters of
life, taken by
streams that vary from day to day, from port to port, adapting his
endeavours
to new unpredictable circumstances:
We
are not allowed to be. We are merely streams
We willingly flow
in all possible shapes[7]
Universal judgements are
contrary to poetry. In the
last book of the Republic, Socrates remarks that had the poets
a real
understanding of their writings, they would devote at once to their
implementation in life. He was unable
to understand that whereas philosophers provide rules, poets provide
understanding. The greatest dramatic characters are not virtuous men,
but
thieves and murderers, as Thomas De Quencey remarks:
«What then must he [the poet]
do? He must throw the
interest on the murderer. Our sympathy must be with him (of
course I
mean a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy by which we enter into his
feelings, and are made to understand them,--not a sympathy of pity of
approbation[8])».
Aristotle distinguished three
kind of poets: a)
those who portrait characters worst than they are, b) those that
portrait them
as they are, and c) those that portrait them as they must be. Most
philosophers
fit into the third category. They are ethical
poets.
A bard who aspires to the
universal becomes a
scholar. Goethe is widely admired on account of his dialectics. His
style,
notwithstanding, has the air of a commercial transaction―as Novalis
remarked. Goethe's predictable characters, his expository style, his
repetitions and twisted endings are mended by the weight of his ideas..
The institutionalisation of the
Academy implied the
institutionalisation of the Philosopher. As more universities were
founded
throughout Europe, scholar and professors tipped towards the systematic
style of
Aristotle. By the end of the 13th century the dramatic
dialogues of
Plato had almost become unfashionable:
«Plato’s writings… represented,
and still represent,
a major hermeneutical puzzle. Even if one could be sure which dialogic
voice
was Plato’s, in order to get at his philosophical position one still
had to
deal with developmental problems and contextual problems, literary
problems of
levels of meaning, degrees of seriousness, and irony that the
scholastic method
of reading texts was unable or unwilling to face[9]».
When Whitehead wrote that the
European philosophical
tradition consisted of a series of footnotes to Plato, he relied on the
certainty that Plato's dialogues―as any artistic work, were open to
diverse interpretations.
The most prestigious
philosophers have been minor poets. Socrates composed
a hymn to
Apollo and a verse adaptation of Aesop days before his suicide. Plato
wrote his
dialogues in a musical style, halfway between prose and poetry―as
Cicero
observed. Tradition has preserved a series of dry epigrams and poems
composed
by Aristotle. Seneca wrote the better-preserved Latin tragedies.
Schopenhauer
published his complete poems months before his death. In one of his
most
pessimistic passages, he lamented the disadvantages of philosophy
before
poetry:
«The great advantage of poetry
over philosophy is
that poems subsist without impending one to each other.
We can, indeed, enjoy and appreciate the
heterogeneity impressed on them by a single spirit. A philosophical
system, on
the contrary, has scarcely come into being when it is already being
threatened
to death by its brothers―like a newly crowned Asian King[10]».
Schopenhauer accused Fichte,
Schelling and Hegel of
grasping metaphysical concepts as poets and artists do[11].
His justification of Plato is rather clumsy:
«The written dialogue is a
manifestation of
philosophical thought. It presents two or more different, entirely
opposite
intentions on a given object. Such intentions are made either to engage
the
readers' judgement, or either to present a complete understanding of
the matter
into question… Without this purpose [a philosophical dialogue] would be
just a
trifle[12]».
Schopenhauer's attack against
his fellow
philosophers was less discreet than Hegel's attack against Kant, Kant's
against
Hume, or Hume's against Locke. Whereas a poet longs for recognition as another poet, the philosopher strives to
become the summus philosophus.
Hegel entertained poetical
aspirations in his youth,
until his acquaintance with Hölderlin persuaded him to pursue a more
suitable
career. His philosophical work,
nonetheless, displays his artistic sensitivity.
M.
H. Abrams
compares the development of philosophical consciousness in Hegel's Phänomenologie
des Geistes to the growth of
poetical sensibility in Wordsworth's Prelude[13].
Despite its longing for universality, Hegel's writings bear the craft
of the Bildungsroman. The table of contents of
his Philosophie des Geistes announces a series of metaphysical
characters: Physical Soul, Sensibility, Feeling Soul, Habit, Intellect,
Consciousness, Reason, Intuition, Recollection, Imagination, Memory,
etc.
Unlike Plato, Hegel recognised the relationship between poetry and the
particular, but―always in compliance with the academic ideology, he
ranked poetry below philosophy:
«… Equally little is it the
purport of mental
philosophy to teach what is called knowledge of men--the knowledge
whose aim is
to detect the peculiarities,
passions, and foibles of other men, and lay bare what are called the
recesses
of the human heart. Information of this kind is, for one thing,
meaningless,
unless on the assumption that we know the universal[14]».
Hegel presents his philosophy as
pure thought,
divested of the passions and interests of art:
«This science [philosophy] is
the unity of Art and
Religion. Whereas the vision-method of Art, external in point of form,
is but a
subjective production and shivers the substantial content into many
separate
shapes...[15]».
Hegel attempts to elaborate a
hierarchy of reality
where the particular is subordinated to the universal. Accordingly all
human
beings―saved the philosophers, appear to be sick: «The sensitive life,
when it becomes a form or state at the self-conscious,
educated,
self-possessed human being is a disease[16]».
Actions, individuals and nations are but bypassed stages of a
relentless
movement: «The progress of mind [Geist] is development[17]».
Consequently Hegel dismisses
poetry as «a thing of
the past[18]»,
arguing that «thought and reflection have taken their flight above fine
art[19]».
The formulation of a new aesthetic theory, or a new science of art,
becomes «a
far more urgent necessity in our own days than in times in which art as
art
sufficed by itself alone to give complete satisfaction[20]».
Art appears to be a mummy that The
Philosopher, the University Professor or the journalist resurrects
with his
rhetoric:
«They [the philosophers] think
they show a respect
for a subject when they de-historicize it, sub specie aeternit--when
they turn
it unto a mummy. All that philosophers have handle for thousand of
years have
been concept-mummies; nothing real escaped their grasp alive. When
these
honorable idolaters of concepts worship something, they killed it and
stuff it;
they threaten the life of everything they worship. Death, change, old
age, as
well as procreation and growth, are to their mind objections--even
refutations…
'Moral: [the philosophers say] let us say No to all who have faith in
the
senses, to all the rest of mankind; they are all 'mob'. Let us be
philosophers!
Let us be mummies!’[21]».
The works of Hegel have been
challenged by the flux of reality. Nietzsche was the first German
writer to
react against the academic ideology. Any attempt to discern his
discourse would
be doomed beforehand. The poet cannot be separated from the
philosopher.
Nietzsche articulated a far wider approach to existence than the one
provided
by philosophy itself. His invectives against Socrates and Euripides
were but
invectives against the philosophical schools of his generation:
«Socrates, the dialectical
hero of the Platonic drama, reminds us of the kindred nature of the
Euripidean
hero, who must defend his actions with arguments and counter-arguments,
and who
thereby so often incurs the danger of forfeiting our tragic pity; for
who could
mistake the optimistic element in the essence of dialectics, which
celebrates a
triumph with every conclusion[22]».
The stoicism of Socrates and
Plato irritated a
sensual and egocentric Nietzsche:
«Let us but realize the
consequences of the Socratic
maxims: 'Virtue is knowledge; man sins only for ignorance; he who is
virtuous
is happy.' In these three fundamental form of optimism lies the death
of
tragedy[23]».
But then, years later, he
confesses his admiration
for Plato. Nietzsche was well aware of his own contradictions, and try
to mend
them by formulating his theory of masks.
In The
Tragic Sense of Life, Miguel de Unamuno refers to poets as
philosophers.
His standpoint was greatly influenced by Sören Kierkegaard[24],
who by the middle of the 19th century cracked the prismatic
building
of German Idealism with one single sentence: «The [Hegelian]
abstraction's risk
is precisely in reference to the problem of the existence[25]».
Decades later Theodor Adorno, a survivor of the wars that risked the
very
existence of humanity, wrote:
«The conception of a totality
harmonious through all
its antagonisms compels him [Hegel] to assign to individuation, however
much he
may designate it a driving moment in the process, an inferior status in
the
construction of the whole… with serene indifference he opts once again
for
liquidation of the particular…the individual as such he [Hegel] for the most part considers, naively, as an
irreducible datum…[26]».
Centuries before the birth of
Hegel, Shakespeare had
already condemned any systematic approach to the individual. «You won't
pluck out
the heart of my mystery», warns Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
One of the greatest
misconceptions of aesthetics is
that poetry corresponds primarily to emotions: «There is no question,
then,
that a work of art is presented to sensuous apprehension[27].»
Thoughts appear to be the private privilege of philosophy. But emotions
cannot
exist by themselves. They require the assistance of the mind, or―as
Kant
pointed out in his third critique, they must be subordinated to the
mind
in order
to become sublime. Hegel was well aware of the dialectics of art: «[Art's] position is of the nature, that
along with its sensuous presentation it is fundamentally addressed to
the mind[28].»
And yet the utmost effort of German Idealism was the suppression of
feelings in
the individual. Kant, according to Thomas De Quencey, died most
perplexed by
the fact that one of his best students married a poor woman out of
love. His
rational and insensitive mind could only understand matrimony in terms
of
wealth and prestige.
A writer divested of emotions is
a nihilistic
writer: «Is not memory inseparable from love, which seeks to preserve
what yet
must pass away?… Once the last trace of emotion has been eradicated,
nothing
remains of thought but absolute tautology[29]».
Who cannot feel compassion for fellowmen becomes a misanthrope. Like
Timon of
Athens he would bark day and night about the pointless nature of
existence:
Graves only be
men's works and death their
gain![30]
Anthropological philosophy
has been unable to answer to the question What
is man?, for man changes from age to age, from day to day, from
hour to
hour:
At
Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday, I gather
my diapers and my
shroud, and now I am
A ceaseless
series of cadavers[31]
In Macbeth, Shakespeare
did not intend to
portray a historical account of a Scottish Tyrant, but rather to give
expression to a series of particular experiences. His poem includes
diverse and
contradictory attitudes towards life―a condition that a enlightened
writer such as Voltaire could not digest. The stoicism of these lines
may
indeed have seduced his academic ear:
I have lived long
enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into
the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which
should accompany old age,
As honour, love,
obedience, troops of
friends,
I must not look
to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud
but deep, mouth-honour,
breath,
Which the poor
heart would fain deny, and
dare not[32]
Any conclusion about the
'philosophy' of Shakespeare, or even Macbeth, would be immediately
contradicted
by the following page:
Life's but a
walking shadow, a poor player
That shruts and
frets his hour upon the stage,
And there is hear
no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
signifying
nothing... [33]
The cries of Macbeth seem to
anticipate the nihilistic philosophies that perplexed the past century.
But
Shakespeare never pretended to be universal. When his verses grasp the
universal within the particular, the universal becomes the particular.
His
comedies and tragedies are sensitive works of understanding. In
theatre―as in cinema, we are allowed to share the thoughts and feelings
of Oedipus, Fedra, Hecuba, Macbeth, Lear, Tartuffo or Falstaff:
...look on
Oedipus (...)
Now what a black
sea of terror has overwhelmed him.
Now as we keep
our watch and wait the final day,
count no man
happy till he dies, free of pain at last[34]
Great poets are but
witnesses of the sorrows of the doomed; they contemplate the depths of
suffering as children who stand before the open sea:
The oldest hath
borne most: we that are young
Shall never see
so much, nor live so long[35]
The
searchers of the Golden Fleece of unity are marooned. As the Academy
slowly
recognises the coexistence of diverse ideologies in diverse societies,
the
philosophical discourse becomes more poetical. But the distinction
between
poetry and philosophy must remain. The emphasis on the individual
should be
balanced with a political, ethical and metaphysical debate, least he
individual
be crushed under the weight of a consumerist ideology:
«In the hundred and fifty years
since Hegel's
conception was formed, some of the force of protest has reverted to the
individual. Compared to the patriarchal meagreness that characterizes
his
treatment in Hegel, the individual has gained as much in richness,
differentiation and vigour as, on the other hand, the socialization of
society
has enfeebled and undrmined him[36]».
