Is Platonism an Existentialism?

Edward Moore, S.T.L., PhD

(c) 2014

I.

Plato is very well aware of how much capacity there is in the human soul for inner conflict, for ill health and misery. Reason, the drive or need to reach the truth of the forms and the Idea of the Good, comes into conflict with the bodily appetites, since human nature desires knowledge of the forms but also struggles against this knowledge.

~ T. Z. Lavine

The attempt to define any '-ism' (especially in philosophy) is, at best, misguided; at worst, it is just plain foolish. Since I have been caught up in quite a bit of foolishness lately, I thought: Why not compare two seemingly opposed philosophies, and see if there is a common ground, or perhaps even a fundamental identity (at least on a certain key point)?

The soul in conflict with itself: this theme runs not only through philosophy since Socrates and Plato, but also through Christianity, especially in St. Paul's famous statement in Romans 7:23, where he writes: "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." The term Paul uses, translated in the KJV as "warring against," is antistrateimai, which means precisely to enter into combat, or engage in conflict. In this case, the conflict is occurring in Paul's soul, which he metaphorically calls his "members" (melos, emphasizing the often non-intellectual manner of this conflict; when I am emotionally hurt, the pain is literal -- I lose appetite, feel nausea, and extreme physical discomfort in all my limbs. In this section of Romans we have a central theme of existentialism: existence preceding essence. For Paul states that he did not know sin before he was taught the law, and therefore, his existence preceded the essential truth (as he believed) of the law received by Moses from God Himself.

Plato is less obviously existentialist; in fact, I am unaware of anyone ever labelling him such. His belief in eternal Forms that are the essences, so to speak, of all existing things here in the realm of matter, rather precludes any existential motifs in his writings. However, if we look closely as some of the myths in certain dialogues, such as the Phaedrus, we find psychic conflict. The charioteer who cannot control the horse that represents the physical passions or appetites loses control, plunges to earth, and is encased in matter (flesh), and becomes a less-than-divine being. In the better-known allegory of the cave, we find the philosopher, after exiting the cave of ignorance and entering the light of reason, stumbling about like a man drunk, or confused -- blinded by the light of the 'real' world. Surely, in this uncomfortable state, a desire to rejoin his fellows in the cave is a temptation, albeit a fleeting one. Yet unless the philosopher is a saint, some conflict must occur. The true philosopher, of course, will (ideally) embrace reason, no matter how disconcerting or disjointing it may seem at first. But the human person, who desires a concrete love, and a set of morals and ethics that may be witnessed 'at work' in this life, well ...

Plato divided the soul of the human being into three parts: (1) the rational part, (2) the "spirited" or emotional part, and (3) the base part containing the bodily appetites. It is, according to Plato, the role of the rational part to control the other two; but in the myth of the charioteer, we find that this is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible: the soul in conflict with itself is a theme that runs through Platonic ethics and metaphysics, especially among Plato's successors in the Old Academy.

However, even before his nephew Speusippus took over as headmaster after Plato's death, we find in the so-called Unwritten Doctrines of Plato[1] a metaphysical schema that involves conflict at the highest level. The first principle of the universe, called the One, was said to exist eternally alongside an opposed principle called the Indefinite Dyad. It was the role of the One to impose order and limit on this unruly principle which, if left unchecked, would have made the generation of a rational, intelligible cosmos impossible.[2] At this metaphysical level, it is hard to imagine, anthropomorphically, the One trying desperately to explain to the (feminine) Dyad that everything will work out if only she follows his lead. Instead, Plato invoked mathematics, with the union of the One with the Dyad as constitutive of the entire number sequence out of which the noetic cosmos was constructed. These numbers were called by Plato eidetic, or of the realm of ideas. Physical reality, the realm of matter (which we know all too well) was brought into existence through the mediation of a World-Soul, or Demiurge, who somehow translated these numbers into the solid masses out of which our world -- and selves -- is constructed. So far, there is nothing of the existential about all of this mystical philosophico-religiosity. However ...

The second successor of Plato, in the Academy (after his nephew Speusippus), was a fellow named Xenocrates; this creative and anthropomorphizing thinker dubbed the One "Father" and the Dyad "Mother," the latter being nothing less than unruly, pre-existent matter itself. We may think, by mingling traditions and genres, of the "abyss" in Genesis 1:2, over which the spirit of God moved. The One, according to Xenocrates, dealt with this "evil and unruly" Mother (Dyad) by dividing the cosmos into two sections: the realm above the moon, where rational entities dwell (ruled over by the One himself), and the realm below, where is to be found all manner of change and corruption (wherein that scarlet-lipped lady Dyad is allowed to run wild). We have evidence, albeit fragmentary and scanty, that Xenocrates divided humanity into two types: Olympian and Titan. The former are closely connected with the rational, ordering power of the One, the latter with the unpredicatable and otherwise aggravatingly flighty Dyad.[3] We may, I suppose, call this a 'trickle-down effect': the conflict at the level of the highest entities (and Xenocrates seems to have identified the One with Mind) affects all other beings, from the noblest intellects to the most loin-obsessed predators of the sublunar realm. It was, according to Xenocrates, the task of the World-Soul, or Demiurge, to strike a balance, to mediate between these two extremes, and thereby create a human life in which existence is the key to unlocking the mysteries of the cosmos.

II.

Descriptions of concrete behavior must ... be envisaged within the perspective of conflict. ... Conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others.

~ Jean-Paul Sartre

My existence does indeed precede my essence. I find myself alone in this world, desperately seeking something to which to cling for meaning, solace, the indefinable sense of purpose that love brings ... I find myself wanting desperately to believe in the warm embrace of God, but as Sartre put it so well: "The existentialist ... finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven." Aesthetic splendor, whether of the Roman Catholic Church or of Nature, does not move me nearly as much as the reciprocation of clumsily expressed emotion. ... (I should have typed 'love' -- I just did.)

Lord Byron, in his Stanzas to Augusta, summed up perfectly the manner in which a woman's love lifts a man above his degraded state as a self-serving, self-involved existent, and transforms him into a fully aware, self-giving Person. "Thy soft heart refused to discover / The faults which so many could find" [if only!] ... (and later):

In the Desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree,

And a bird in the solitude singing,

Which speaks to my spirit of Thee.

Transformative Love is at the heart of Plato's metaphysics, as it is of Byron's best poetry. Let us recall the Symposium. Diotima instructs Socrates that the lust for a beautiful body is the first step or stage in an ascent to the highest of loves: "the knowledge of Universal Beauty." In there here-and-now, the brute moments of my absurd existence, beauty shows itself intermittently, and tantalizes with the promise of something more. That promise is rarely -- in my case never -- fulfilled. Some enjoy love of spouse, and build a life on that hylic foundation. So much the better for them. But what of the idealist, who also happens to be an existentialist? A walking, seething, frothing, smoke-blowing tangle of contradictions and paradoxes, yet knowing one thing: "Love never fails" (1 Corinthians 13:8).

The greatest problem one faces -- whether one is a Platonic idealist, a Christian, an atheist existentialist, or some stinking stew concocted of leftovers from them all -- is the unpredictability of the other. Yes, we know that Sartre had a character in his play No Exit declare "Hell is other people." That line has been over-quoted, and misunderstood. In the play, three people, a man and two women (one of whom is a lesbian) have been sent to "hell," yet there are no demons or torture racks, only sofas in a brightly lit room. There the three of them will spend eternity together, tormenting each other by the unavoidability of their presence.

Hell is certainly not the persons with whom I seek relations, not the persons with whom I would like to share some essential ingredients of my over-simmered stew of self, and discover new and inspiring ways to engage with the world. Hell is the indifference and self-centeredness (not necessarily selfishness -- two different concepts) of certain persons that draw us to them, only to close and retreat and prosper in their own self-constituted realm -- like the Platonic One. Meanwhile, the unruly Dyad sets things into motion that should never have been ...

III.

So is Platonism an existentialism ... of sorts? If we define Platonism as the philosophical doctrine of intellectual idealism, that all existing things derive from thoughts in the mind of the highest entity, beyond even essence, then there is no connection. However, if we see the conflict at work in Platonism, the beginning of all things in an overdose of power, however benign, that sets in motion human desires ... well, perhaps were are on to something.

If we define existentialism as the philosophy which insists that existence precedes essence, that life is absurd, and the only meaning we are capable of 'finding' is that which we craft for ourselves ... well, perhaps we are seeing ourselves as the Demiurge (our own personal, semi-solipsistic 'World-Soul'), albeit in a state of confusion, flux, disappointment, and sometimes even sheer terror at what this world offers and -- even more terrifying! -- what this world denies us.

Well, we are on to something.

The seventeenth century poet William Cartwright wrote a fine poem entitled No Platonic Love. Anti-idealism, of course, is the self-antidote for frustrated idealism, which is the source of the pathos of Cartwright's poem. He wrote:

Tell me no more of minds embracing minds,

And hearts exchang'd for hearts;

That two unembodied essences may kiss,

And then like Angels, twist and feel one Bliss.

[...]

Come, I will undeceive thee, they that tread

Those vain aerial ways,

Are like young heirs and alchemists misled

To waste their wealth and days,

For searching thus to be for ever rich,

They only find a med'cine for the itch.

Notes:

1. These were, apparently, lectures Plato gave to his inner circle of gifted students. There was also an infamous public lecture he gave, "On the Good," which disappointed the common folk, who were expecting a lecture on how to lead a prosperous life. What they got instead was a lecture on mathematics! (See: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4182081?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104147089153

2. See Edward Moore (2005), "Middle Platonism," in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/midplato/

3. Ibid.