The One and the Forms; At a Glance

The One and the Forms are metaphysical entities, that have been weth western philosophy almost since its begining in Classical Greece. Eventhough they were not connected in their orgins, the One and the Forms rer most often found thgether in philosophical systems. We shall examine the One first and then the Foums. Xenophanes lived in the fifth century B.C.E. He was the precursor to the doctrine of the One. Ge taught that God was one. He was also a strong opponet to any anthropomorphism in religion. Xenophanes also taught that God abides in the same place, never moving and never changing. These teachings are important precusrors the the One. The One is most often divinized into being God, and the One is always seen as unchanging, immutable, and incorruptable. It is true Xenphanes is more theologian than philosopher; he was probably the first theologian in history. It is wi8th Parmenides that the One really makes its appearance in western philosophy. In an important distinction from Xenophanes; Parmenides comes up with the One through the use of logic. Parmenides reasons that there cannot be nothing; so there must be something. This something is the One. Like Xenophanes's God , the One does not move or change; it is uncorruptable, and immutable. Paumenides does not stop; he insists there is nothing except the One. Philosophy made an important distinction with Parmenides; appearance and reality. All change, movement, growth, and decay are illusion. So in its first incarnation the One is passive. The way to achieve a vision of the One is th use reason to cut through the illusion. When all illusion is dissipated, all that is left is the One. The wat to the One is through logic. Anything that change or moves is an illusion. Parmenides has set a high standard for reality. Ultimate of absolute reality must be immutable and uncorruptable. The important point to remember is that the vision of the One is reached through logic and reason. This shall become a mark of the One whether it is a passive or active One. Of course, the ONe ia a logical entity that has no existential reality. The One is always reached through logic; the One is an endpoint for any thinker that takes the law of non-counterdiction as the centerpiece of their epistemology. Whenever the law of non-counterdiction is taken as the centerpiece of epistemology a One is always reached; unless logic is cut off at somepoint. We shall observe this later. A One has to be reached; it is the place where all conflicts, divisions, and counterdictions are resolved. Now that we have observed the passive One; let us turn to Plotinus and the active One. In the system of Plotinus, again the One is the ultimate reality, but appearances and material objects are not pure illusion as in Parmenides's philosophy. Instead all entities have a partial reality, because they are all productions of the One. In Plotinus this prodution or creation is done by emanation. The One is always creating, but each emanation is less perfect than its predecessor. This can be symbolized as a ladder from the highest to hte lowest. In western philosophy this is known as the "Great Chain of Being." In Plotinus the first three emanations are considered divine and identified as God. Plotinus also asserts that the way to the One is through the use of logic and reason. Instead of the end point being at the bottom, the endpoint is at the top. All conflicts and divisions are resolved at an endpoint at the top, because the One is active. Depending on whether the One is passive or active the endpoint is either at the bottom or the top. We shall now turn to Proclus a neoplatonic that followed Plotinus. What interests us in the philosophical system of Proclus is that he asserted there was a One at the bottom as well as at the top. Proclus held that the One was active like all neoplatonics, but that at the very lowest rung of existence there was a passive One, that was a mirror image of the active One at the top. It must be said that Proclus never worked out the implications of this assertion of two Ones. And for very good reason. The only two other thinkers that flirted with this idea of an active and passive One were Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno, but both backed away from the implications of this assertion. The reason being is that having two Ones is a counterdiction. If maintained it would invalidate the law of non-counterdiction that centerpiece of their epistimology that led the position. It is not a good thing to invalidate your own epistemology. It is hard to hold that the law of non-counterdiction is the basis of your epistemology, but your metaphysics asserts that reality is a counterdiction. It seems Immanuel Kant should have made this counterdiction into one of his antimonies. That it could be proved there is both an active and passive One, through the use of logic. This is probably why no one has worked out all the implications of having both a passive and active One the same system. Instead Kant wisely cut logic off, and asserted that logic cannot be used to go beyond observataions. Before moving to the Forms it is interesting to note that the One unlike the Forms is still alive in western philosophy. It is the passive that has survived. It seems after two thousand years of being forgotten, the passive One has made a comeback in the systems of F,H. Bradley, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Martin Heidgger. The Forms The Forms first appear in the philosophy of Plato. Plato posited that all material objects have an immaterial archetype. That material entities are ectypes of the archetypes. The archetypes are more real than the material ectypes. Plato accepted Parmenides definetion of reality as being immutable and uncorruptable. The uncorruptable and immutable archetypes are the Forms. Plato did not accept Parmenides's monism. Instead Plato posits a pluristic reality in the divinized mental realm of the Forms. Plato never gave an adequate account of how the Forms participate in the material or the world of becomming as he called our everyday world. He did give some hints of how the Forms interact with each other. The realm of the Forms or the intelligible world is hierarchical with the Form of the good being the master Form. The Forms are connected through logic. As with Parmenides's One the way to gain a vision of the Forms is through logic and reason. We must now ask the question: Why did Plato posit the Forms? The answer is the teachings of Protagoros. Protagoros splet subject and object. Protagoros did this by his teaching of the relativity of perciption. Two men could stand in a wind. One man could feel the wind as warm, the other man as cold. According to Protagoros thet are both right. This split subject and object,There was now an external and an external realm, they were no longer the same. Even worse there did not seem to be much correspondence between the two. This situation was intolerable for Plato. It meant there was no absolute truth or absolute good. This is why Plato ploited the realm of the Forms. For when a person grasped the Form, he grasped the truth. There was no ambiguity as in sensory perception. When a person achieved a vision of the good the intellect knew the good. Plato posited a real world with no ambiguity. We must now move to Plotinus. For it is with Plotinus that the threads we have been discussing come together into one philosophical system. Plotinus combined Parminides's One and Plato's Forms into a single philosophical system. Plotinus my not have been the first to combene the One and the Forms, but he did it better than anyone else. Everyone who followed was influenced by Plotinus. Parmenides's passive One becomes an active One in Plotinus. Plotinus does this by making the One creative. Plotinus's One is constantly creating, or to use Plotinus's term "emanating." The first emanation from the One is the Forms. The Forms then emanate Souls, and here ends the divine. Souls emanate matter . Matter is not seen as being divine, it is not part of Plotinus's Godhead. The frason is because matter does not have any active or creative power. Matter is just a recepticle for the Forms, whicg are brought into matter by the active power of Souls. Souls are the intermediary between matter and the higher realms of hte One and the Forms(Nous). The realmo of the Forms (Nous) is seen as being the mind of God. In christian theology, much of which is based on neoplatonism, The realm of the Forms (Nous) is identified with the Son of the Trinity. The best analogy for the Forms in Plotinus's system is a computer program. In this analogy matter is the computer screen or monitar. The Forms determine what appears on the monitar. Let us move to an example: humanity. The reason there are so many differences in humans is that no particular human can express all the traits in the Form humanity. There are men, women, light skinned, dark skinned humans, and so on. Any defects are the fault of matter to receive the Form. So if a person is boun without arms, it is the fault of matter to realize the Form. For the Forms are perfect. Plotinus like Parmenides and Plato also asserted that the only way to gain a vision of the eternal realm of the Forms was through the use of reason and logic. This is the mark of all top-down systems: that abstractions are more real than material entities. The Forms are of course, abstractions form material entities. And now we arrive at the destruction of the top-down system and the Forms. The total destruction of the top-down system happened in1859 with the publication of " The Origin of the Species" by Charles Darwin. Although there were serious cracks and gaps before Darwin in the top-down world view. So how does the theory of evolution totally undermine the top-down system and the Forms? Instead of Forms of abstractions being the active cause, it is matter that is active and generates material entities. Even worse mutations are not due to divine will, but random. There are no immutable uncorruptable Forms for the mind to grasp. When humans understand an abstraction, it is not grasping reality it is only a tool for manipulating circumstances. A tool that may turn out to be partial, inadequate of simply wrong. There is no correspondence for the to grasp: there is no ultimate absolute truth.

Remarks on Metaphysics

To start our inquiry into the nature of metaphysics, lot us begen with the fefinitions of two nodern philosophers: A. N. Whitehead and R. G. Collingwood. Whitehead asserted that metaphysics consists of a general and comprehensive interpatation of experience. Collingwood held that metaphysics was an investihation into the deepest held presuppositions of humankind throughout history. The above definitions are not mutally exclusive, but complementary. To interpet our experience, we use our presuppositions. This shall become clear as the essay continues. This already shows that any discussion of metaphysics involves psychology. So let us trun to one of the preemenit figures in twentith century psychology: C. G. Jung. It must be noted most of the ideas of Jung that are used in this essay re taken from the writings of his student and friend Marie-Louise von Franz. The reason being is that Franz has greater clarity in expressing Jung's ideas than Jung. The view expressed by Jung and Franz is that humans project their presuppositions on to experience. What this means is that humans use a pauakigm to understand the cosmos. How this paradigm comes about leads to a dispute between two of the great physicists of the twentith century. A. Einstein and M. Planck, Einstein held that it was nothing short of a miracle that our mintal paradigms agree with the external world. Planck held hat we come up with our paradigms through a dialectical process of dealin with the external world. It seems obvous that Planck is right, and Einstein was too influenced by Descartes and Leibniz. What all this means is we use a preconsived paradigm to understand the world. This of course, desproves the old empiricist presupposition that the mind or the psyche is passive. Experience does not write on a blank slate. Instead the psyche activily projects its paradigms on to experience; to organize experience into a coherent pattern. what metaphysics is concerned with is the primary paradigm of experience. The primary paradigm of experience is both the deepest held and the widest organizing pattern of experience. What this meand is that things within the paradigm can change without changing the paradigm. When the primary paradigm of experience changes, everything changes. The primary paradigm of experience is learned in childhood, in other words it is a cultural process not a scintific process. Before moving to examine the two most successful paradigms, let us look at puimal or primitive people as an exmaple. All primitive or primal people use the mythological paradigm: that the cosmos is controlled by spirits of gods. When we examine different primitive or primal cultures, we fing the gods are given different names, and different bounfries on what is rnder their control. In the mytholoical paradigm there is no line between science, religion, or ordinary life. It is all one seemless whole covering all of human experience and activeties. It is learned in childhook and passed from generation to generation. Now we can move to examine the two most successful paradigm: the mythologecal paradigm and the paradigm of Western civilization; the top-down paradigm. The mythological paradigm is what in "computer jargon" would called the "default setting" of humakind. In other words it does not have to be introduced or taught to a people. It arises naturally wherever humans gather into groups. It comes about if not activily prevented; it also arises when no other paradigm is taught. This is why civilization can be lost. In this paradigm humand project their emotions out onto the world and personify the projected emotion and objects associated as gods or spirits: a god of thunder an ocean god, etc. It is obvious that depending on the geographic location of a culture determines the impotance of the various gods. In a desert culture the Sun-god and the Storm-god would become important; in sea going culture the ocean gods and shark gods become important. The gods are a nexus of emotion and material objects associated with the emotions. War gods are an obvious example: objects such as swords, spears, and armor become connected to emotions such as bravery and discipline to make up a war god. In studing the mythological paradigm we also find the definitive refutation of empiricism. If in fact the human intellect was a blanck slate, primitive societies should have the simplest explantation and operations for accomplishing tasks and explaining natural phenomenon. Instead we find just the opposite. Primitive and tribal peoples have the most complex explanations of natural processes and the most complicated rituals for accomplishing tasks.In examining the mythological paradigm we find the seeds or orgins of the paradigm that shall follow.This can be observed when we look at the last years of the mythological age, and the begining of the top-down paradigm. Protagoros is the person that dealt the death blow to the mythological paradigm whe he broke subject and object apart. This made the mythological paradigm untenable. No longe were a person's inside and outside the same. The emotions were no longer in the object, but had moved into the subject. Thil undermined the mythological gods. In simple terms the crocodile is no longer scary, instead the subject is scared of the crocodile. We shall now move to the top-down paradigm and examine how the seeds or orgins of the top-down paradigm were present int the mythological paradigm. Plato was the crucial thinker at the very beginining of the top-down paradigm. The of the top-down paradigm is that abstractiosn are more real than material objects, and the material world. The reason for this belif is that abstractions are seen as being eternal and immutable, while material objects change; grow, decay,etc. The seed of this view is of course, the mythological gods. The gods of primitive or tribal cultures are viewed as eternal, because generation after generation have believed in the gods. In other words the gods of the present generation are also the gods of the grandparent's generation, and the generation of the grandchildren. Each generation feels fear, love, frustaration, etc. So Plato moves his Forms, which are abstractions, to another realm or world. This world or realm of the Forms becomes the real world, because it is unchangabe and immutable. The material world becomes less real or a bad copy of the world of the Forms. The Forms come out down out of their divinized mental world to inform the material world. This scheme was of course, taken over by Christianity. The message of Jesus Christ was pasted on top of th top-down Platonic metaphysics. This combination of the Christian message with classica Greek metaphysics becomes the mark of Western Civilization. The first big crack in the top-down paradigm comes in the Medieval era withe the philosophical doctrine of noninalism. Nominalism says only particulars exist; there are no Forms. There are only objects and their qualities. This doctrine in the time of the Renaissance and Reformation brought back the other classical greek school of metaphysics: atomism. Atomism of course led to empiricism. Empiricism is another effort to join subject and object back together. Epiricism does this by making the human intellect passive, so experience (external world) writes or makes impressions on the human intellect. Thus inside and outside are again joined. So expeience (external world) writes or makes impressions on the human intellect. Thus again outside (object) and inside (subject) are united. We have already refuted this postion. The revival of atomism led to unprecedented scientific advancements, but it still had to be reconciled with the top-down paradigm. After all it is the religious that reconciles individuals to the cosmos. Enter Rene Descartes. Descartes joins both the top-down and the atomistic metaphysics into one paradigm. He did this by using a medieval heresy called "Latin Averroism" which is a double theory of truth. That each metaphysical paradigm is true in its own realm. Atomism is true in the physical realm, while the top-down platonic paradigm is true in the mental or spiritual realm. Make no mistake, eventhough Descartes made room for atomism his system is still very much a Christian top-down system; that abstractions are still more real than the physical. Descartes had worked out a compromise, that becomes the basis for western philosophy. Some trying to give precedence to the physical realm, some trying to give more prcedence to the mental,and some ttying to maintain the balance of the two realms. The trouble with the top-down paradigm is that it no longer works. Descartes compromise has been shattered. As Protagoros destroyed the mythological paradigm, so Charles Darwin destroyed the top-down paradigm. Darwin showed how animals and humans can be created without an abstract Form. There is no need to be informed from above. The top-down paradigm of Christian theology had one last stand in Marxism. Marxism tries to strip the Christian top-down paradigm of its supernatural elements, but Marxism is still the Christian myth. There is still a will working out in human history. This will is the dailectic, and there is still a utopia at the end of human history. Marxism is the last attempt to bring down the ultimate Form into matter to create a utopia. And of course it failed. The historian Arnold Toynbee said " ...when the basic religious ideas of a culture are no longe creativly effective in the soul of its people; the culture is doomed" This is where we are now; it is our challenge to create the paradigm of the future