The Tragedy of Reason

Toward a Platonic Conception of Logos

David Roochnik

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000362855
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The classical conception of reason (or logos ) has been repeatedly attacked in the modern era. Its enemies range from Descartes, who complains that logos is not sufficiently useful or precise, to Derrida who hopes to liberate Western thought from its bondage to "logocentrism."

At least since the time of Nietzsche, Plato has been damned as the chief architect of the classical conception of logos. He is accused of overvaluing reason and thereby devaluing the other, more human aspects of life. As it was originally formulated in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, Plato has been taken to be the arch-enemy of tragedy, which for Nietzsche was the most life-affirming of all the art forms of Greek culture.

Originally published in 1990, The Tragedy of Reason defends Plato against his accusers. Employing a mode of exposition which exhibits Plato's position, Roochnik presents the Platonic conception of logos in confrontation with texts by Homer, Hesiod, Heraclitus, Aristotle, Descartes, Porty, and Derrida. In clear language, unencumbered by technical terminology, Roochnik shows that Platonic conception of logos is keenly aware of the strength of its opponents. The result is a presentation of Plato as a "tragic philosopher" whose conception of logos is characterized by an affirmation of its own limits as well as its goodness.

Chapter 1

Logos is Unconditionally Good

A The Classic Assertion

(1) Aristotle’s Vision

Aristotle was right: human beings are, by their very nature, “the animals who have logos.” What this means is that logos is what essentially characterizes us. Without it we simply would not be who we are. To put this in different but related terms, logos is what is best about us. In order to become fully and best human it is necessary to exercise our capacity for logos to the highest degree possible. Because logos plays this crucial role in human life it is fair to say that not only is it good, but that it is unconditionally good; there is no occasion, no condition or set of circumstances, that negates the goodness of logos.

Aristotle’s famous assertion is found in the first chapter of his book the Politics, in a passage that analyzes how a city (a polis or “city-state”) comes into being.¹ Briefly the process is this: A polis, which is a type of community (koinonia), is a natural entity that emerges from equally natural, but more primitive, communities. The first of these primitive communities is the household, a gathering composed of at least two pairs: a male and a female, and a ruler and ruled. The first pair is hardly surprising, for it is an obvious biological requirement. The second is puzzling. Aristotle claims that the joining of a ruler and ruled is as natural and as necessary for survival as the relationship between male and female: “Those that are by nature fit to rule and those fit to be ruled must be joined together for survival” (1252a31).

One reason that Aristotle makes this comment is because he believes that such hierarchies are found in all of nature. The relationship between ruler and ruled is not, in other words, an artificial imposition foisted by one group of people on another in order simply to benefit themselves. It is natural. The best example of what Aristotle means by the natural ruler and ruled is found in the relationship that obtains between the psyche (the soul, spirit or mind) and the body.² “An animal is first of all composed of psyche and body. Of these the former is by nature the ruler, the latter is the ruled” (1254a34–36). (Aristotle’s teaching on animals in general would take us rather far afield. Let us then concentrate only on human beings.) The psyche is able to use foresight, intelligence, and calculation to direct the workings of the body toward preestablished goals. Because it has such a natural ability, the psyche should rule the body. It fails to do so only in those people who are truly wretched and in whom “the body rules the psyche on account of this person being totally out of shape and contrary to nature ... it is clear that it is according to nature and beneficial for the body to be ruled by psyche” (1254bl-8).

In an analogous fashion, some human beings are more adept at giving orders because they are better at using their intelligence to foresee what is needed in the future. These are the “natural rulers.” Those who are “naturally ruled” are better suited to use their bodies to fulfill these orders. No doubt this sounds shockingly elitist to our modern, egalitarian, ears. But it must be remembered that Aristotle is here talking about natural, and not legal or conventional, distinctions. In other words, if person A rules person Β only because A’s country has conquered B’s, or because the laws stipulate that Β cannot himself rule, then this is not a natural, but a conventional, ruler/ruled relationship. Aristotle would deny that it is good. Only if A rules Β because A is truly more intelligent than B, only if the relationship between A and Β benefits both parties, would Aristotle call it natural and good.

When the male/female and ruler/ruled are themselves combined, they form the household, a small communal unit required for human survival. The second stage of development is the village which comes into being through the combination of households. This more advanced community facilitates day-to-day living and enhances the security of its members. Eventually, households join together to form a polis, the most complex and self-sufficient of human gatherings. Once they are joined together in the polis the range of human concerns can be greatly expanded. No longer is survival or the secure continuation of life the sole goal of the community. Once they become political, human beings can strive to live a good life (1252bl6–34).

It is not necessary here to evaluate the anthropological or historical accuracy of Aristotle’s assertions. Instead, our goal is to understand how he looks at the world and why he is right in making his famous claim that human beings are the animals who have logos. The most striking feature of the Politics’ analysis of the polis is its reliance on nature. All the developments charted by Aristotle are seen by him to be fully natural. They occur in accord with and in fulfillment of human nature. Natural entities are purposive. They have a “telos,” a goal or end, toward which all their parts and their entire activity are directed. Human being has as a dimension of its essential makeup a purpose: to be political. The biological coupling of females and males is for the sake of the continuation of the species; the joining together of households is for the sake of achieving a higher degree of security. Finally, the coming into being of a polis is for a purpose that encompasses the previous two: the living of a good life. Only in a polis can human beings become what they are capable of being. None of the prior stages (nor their purposes) were complete in themselves. They were like children who have not yet matured. Only with the advent of the polis do they successfully emerge into what they truly are.

This type of reasoning is a prime example of Aristotelian teleology, his logos of the telos of natural entities. Aristotle declares that “as we say, nature does nothing in vain” (1253a9–10), that natural entities have some final state toward which their development is directed. As a result, a full account of such an entity must include an analysis of its telos. This type of account is sometimes referred to as the “final cause,” which is an answer to the question “for the sake of what?” To understand properly any natural entity, this question must be answered.³

The telos functions as a standard by which to measure individual instances of a natural entity. If, for example, it is part of a tree’s nature to have leaves, and a particular tree is diseased and does not have its full share of leaves, then that tree is rightfully declared deficient. Similarly with human beings: since the polis is the telos of communal development, a human being without a polis is not fully human and so cannot live a good life.⁴ Human beings are political animals.

Aristotle’s teleology has been out of fashion for centuries and no doubt sounds strange (offensively arrogant even) to a reader unfamiliar with it. Our scientific age, ever on the search for those particles that cannot be seen or that theory which can embrace all of the universe, dismisses the notion of natural purposes. As one scholar puts it, “the beginning of modern thought can be defined by the decay in the belief in that universal teleological order.”⁵ Later in this book we will examine a pardigmatic example of such a dismissal and consider whether it is justified. For the moment, let us try to suppress our familiar preconceptions and look at the world through Aristotle’s eyes in order to see whether his vision can illuminate our experience at all. The polis, he says, is natural and is the culmination of a process of development.

This chapter began with Aristotle’s declaration that human beings are by nature the animals with logos. It then stated that they are political animals. These two descriptions are related.

And why human being is a political animal more so than any bee or other gregarious animal is clear. For nature, as we assert, does nothing in vain; and human beings alone of the animals have logos. Any usage of voice can indicate pleasure and pain, and so voice belongs to the rest of the animals (for their nature has come to this point, namely to have perception of pain and pleasure and to indicate this to one another.) But logos is for the purpose of clarifying the beneficial and the harmful and as a result the right and the wrong. For this is unique to human beings, that they alone have a perception of good and bad and right and wrong ... And the sharing of these things makes a household and a polis (1253a7–16).

Having logos is the precondition of being political. Human beings join together in communities because they can speak to one another. We do more than make sounds indicating pleasure and pain; we can articulate reasoned thoughts about what is right or wrong, bad or good. It is a sharing, a bringing to voice, of a set of values that constitutes a polis.

But what is logos for Aristotle? The passage above seems to indicate that it is just this capacity to discuss and clarify right and wrong. It is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value. This sounds strange; one might rather expect logos to be described as the capacity to discern what is true or false. Why does Aristotle here give priority to what is good or bad, right or wrong? For one thing, he is talking about politics, whose very essence is the human ability to speak about values. In other contexts, such as his Metaphysics, he examines logos more from the point of view of truth and falsity. But what, then, is Aristotle’s real view of logos?

For this let us return to the passage about the coming into being of the polis. Aristotle’s Politics itself gives a logos, a rational account, of the polis as a natural entity. As such, in this text Aristotle functions as a “physicist,” one who gives a logos of some natural entity that has a physis, a nature. He articulates something essential about the nature of human beings. He would do much the same in a biological work examining the nature and structure of a fish. Aristotle observes, looks at the world, and then articulates what he sees. In a biological text, Aristotle might study human being as a mammal with a certain type of heart, lungs, etc. In the Politics he looks at human being in its political or communal aspect. And what he sees is that the capacity to speak rationally about values is essential to, or even coextensive with, the polis.

We should notice that in the passages from the Politics that have been discussed there are no arguments; Aristotle has not proven that his views are correct. Instead, he seems to tell what he sees as the truth about human beings. This is his standard procedure. Aristotle is above all else a “theoretician,” a word that comes from the Greek theorein meaning “to look at” or “to see.”⁶ He looks at the world and then tells us what he sees. As Heidegger puts it, “the logos lets something be seen ... namely what it is about; and it does so either for the one who is doing the talking (the medium) or for persons who are talking with one another ... Discourse ... lets us see something from the very thing which the discourse is about.”⁷

The following passage also should indicate how closely Aristotle’s conception of logos is related to vision.

All human beings by nature reach out for knowledge. An indication of this is the affection we have for our senses. For even disregarding their usefulness, we are fond of them for their own sake; and more than the rest, we are especially fond of the sense which is through the eyes. For not only when we are going to do something, but even when we’re not about to do anything, we prefer seeing, generally speaking, to all the rest. The reason for this is that sight, most of all the senses, enables us to know things and it makes clear many distinctions ... (Metaphysics 980a20–28).⁸

Sight is frequently used, both in English and Greek, as a metaphor for knowing. (We speak of insight, having a bright idea or an illuminating discussion.) It is not, however, only a metaphor since for Aristotle it (along with the other senses) makes an actual contribution in the process of acquiring knowledge. Aristotle is extremely confident about the reliability of our senses. They can be trusted for they can report accurately to us information about the world (about nature) “out there.” Through a complex process that he describes in his book De Anima, Aristotle shows how the senses constitute the first stage in the attainment of knowledge. It is not necessary here to examine the details of that process. Instead, let two further citations give some indication of how greatly Aristotle trusts our ability to see, and then say, the world as it is.

For it is on account of wonder (thaumazein) that human beings, both now and at first, began to philosophize. At first, human beings wondered about the odd things that were right in front of them. Gradually they progressed and were perplexed about much greater matters, like the changes of the moon and sun and stars, and about the generation of the universe (Metaphysics, 982b12–17).

Seeing (theoria) the truth is in one sense difficult, in another easy. An indication of this is the fact that even though no one can adequately grasp it, all of us cannot miss it entirely. Instead, each of us is able to give a logos (legein) about some part of nature and even though as individuals little or nothing is added to the truth, from all of us contributing together something grand comes about (Metaphysics, 993a30-b4).⁹

These two short passages tell much about how Aristotle understands the human relationship to the world out there. In the first, he talks about wonder. The Greek word here, thaumazein, is etymologically related to theorein, which means to see or to look at. Wonder, seeing objects in the world and being both amazed and perplexed by them, is the origin of philosophy. It is because we see things that puzzle us that we begin the search for knowledge. The search is progressive. Starting from that which is right in front of us, we are able to advance in our inquiries until we attempt to understand the nature of the universe itself. There is thus a continuity in our searching. The wonder-ful things in our immediate vicinity trigger a process of inquiry that eventually leads us to questions about the much larger whole that embraces these things. As such, we can and should trust our relationship to the world around us. When we are perplexed by what is in front of us, we can be confident that our puzzles, as well as our solutions, will lead us toward greater and more comprehensive questions. We are beings directed outwardly toward the world, approaching it with wonder and the desire for knowledge, worthy urges that should be affirmed and carefully nurtured.

The second passage reformulates this theme. Seeing the truth is in one sense easy. Nobody can get it all wrong. Why? We are at home in, part of, the world. Simply to be alive requires being able to see some of the world accurately; we typically walk around, and not into, ditches.¹⁰ What we see is actually out there to be seen. Our senses rarely lie. No one can see everything, and some surely see more sharply than others, but by pooling together the visions of many we can see something grand.

In this passage Aristotle evinces a great trust not only in the human ability to see without distorting the world out there, but to articulate faithfully that vision. “Each of us,” he says, “is able to give a logos (legein, related to logos) about some part of nature.” Language, according to Aristotle, is able to communicate, without distorting, the truth about nature, the world out there to be seen. To elaborate, consider the following passage from De Interpretatione:

Spoken sounds are symbols of affections of the psyche, and written words are symbols of spoken sounds. And just as written words are not the same for all men, so spoken sounds are not the same for all. However, those first things of which these [spoken sounds] are signs, namely the affections of the psyche, are the same for all, and th...