A Platonist Perspective on Religious Transcendence

 I present here an excerpt from my Plato book (Rational Spirituality and Divine Virtue in Plato). 

The first part of this excerpt describes the ultimate “existential” issues I think Plato addresses, and his view that striving for the highest levels of virtue in one’s own character is what ultimately and finally matters in life.

The second part describes Plato’s worldview in terms of two “worlds”.  (1) The concrete world we see around us “over here” (ekeise), in which goodness only ever exists in a changing form always mixed with things that are not good, and (2) a “divine” world existing “over there” (enthade).  As Plato puts it:

It is impossible that evils should be done away with [in the concretely visible world “over here”]… they cannot have their place among the Gods, but must inevitably hover about our mortal nature and this region.  God is in no way and in no manner unrighteous, but is most perfectly righteous, and nothing is more like Him than any one among us who becomes the most nearly perfect in rightness as is possible.

I take these latter ideas as a basis for a different “philosophy of religion” applicable to the interpretation of other axial age classics in various traditions (Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, Christian), which urge individuals to take some “transcendent” reality as the main focus of their commitments and striving in life.  In the writings themselves, this other reality is most often presented imagistically in mythological terms, which taken literally seem to imagine a kind of parallel universe populated by these transcendent realities.  In modern times, these mythological images have often been interpreted in terms of the philosophical category of “metaphysics.”  Plato’s theory of virtue-Forms has, for example, as well as his more general Form theory, has been interpreted as a kind of “metaphysics.”

The final part of the present essay proposes an entirely different reason-based approach to understanding Plato’s claims concerning the “otherworldly” transcendence of his virtue-Forms.  On this view, Platonic virtue-Forms “transcend the world” in the perfection of their goodness.

This also forms the basis for a different way of conceiving a “philosophy of religion” when it comes to claims to otherworldly transcendence characteristic of axial age writings from different traditions.  We should not take such claims literally, as referring to objectively existing things or substances populating a kind of parallel universe.  Nor should we understand them in terms of the rather vague philosophical category of “metaphysics”.  We should understand Nirvana and Dao, for example, as different ideals, each “transcending the world” in the perfection of its goodness.  Socratic/Platonic reasoning then gives us a rational way of telling which particular ways of conceptualizing Nirvana and Dao qualify as ideals “transcending the world” in the perfection of their goodness, and which do not.  These ideas form a partial basis for my treatments in other essays on other axial age classics I have managed to study in some detail.

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Here then are the relevant excerpts from my Plato book described above.

I first open with two quotations from Plato, exemplifying Plato’s view of the impact that his hero Socrates had on some Athenians with whom he came in contact.

Whoever comes into close contact with Socrates and has any talk with him face to face, is bound to be drawn round and round by him in the course of the argument – though it might have started at first on a quite different theme – and cannot stop until he is led into giving an account of himself, of the manner in which he now spends his days, and of the kind of life he has lived hitherto; and when once he has been led into that, Socrates will never let him go until he has thoroughly and properly put all his ways to the test.  (Said by the Athenian General Laches, in Plato’s dialogue Laches 187e-188a; Lamb tr.)

When I hear [Socrates] speak I am worse than any wild fanatic; I find my heart leaping and my tears gushing forth at the sound of his speech, and I see great numbers of other people having the same experience.  When I listened to Pericles and other skilled orators I thought them eloquent, but I never felt anything like this; my spirit was not left in a tumult… whereas [Socrates’] influence… has often thrown me into such a state that I thought my life not worth living on these terms… Even now I am still conscious that if I consented to lend him my ear, I could not resist him, but would have the same feeling again.  For he compels me to admit that, sorely deficient as I am, I neglect myself while I attend to the affairs of Athens.  So I withhold my ears… and make off as fast as I can… There is one experience I have in the presence of this man alone, such as no one would expect in me – to be made to feel ashamed by anyone; he alone can make me feel it. For he brings home to me that I cannot disown the duty of doing what he bids me, but that as soon as I turn from his company I fall victim to the favours of the crowd.  So I take a runaway’s leave of him and flee away; when I see him again I think of those former admissions, and am ashamed.  Often I would wish he had vanished from this world; yet again should this befall, I am sure I should be more distressed than ever; so I cannot tell what to do with the fellow at all.  (Said by Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium 215e-216c; Lamb tr.)

These are two accounts Plato gives of the way Socrates affected people who talked with him.  The “Socrates” that appears in Plato’s writings is Plato’s philosopher-hero.  Plato’s Socrates represents two things:

On the one hand, unrestricted questioning in search of truth.  He tried to teach people to value questioning at the expense of comfort.  People will not begin to seriously search for truth until questioning shakes their confidence that they already know it.  Socrates died by court-ordered suicide, convicted of “corrupting the youth.” In Plato’s picture he died because he taught young men of Athens a love of truth which caused them to question traditional beliefs

But what is the “truth” that Socrates was seeking? It is truth about “virtue,” arētē, moral excellence of character.  Virtue is what makes a soul a healthy soul, and at his trial Socrates said he was teaching young men to search for the truth about virtue.  He begins a picture of his life mission by an imagined address to the people of Athens:

Most excellent men of Athens… Are you not ashamed to care for the acquisition of wealth and for reputation and honor, when you neither care or take thought for wisdom and truth and for your soul that it might become its best?”

And if any of you argues the point, and says that he does care, I shall not let him go… but I shall question and examine and cross-examine him, and if I find that he does not possess virtue but says he does, I shall rebuke him for scorning the things that are of most importance and caring more for what is of less worth. (Apology 29e, tr. Fowler 1914, 109, lightly revised; for more on Socrates and “care of the soul” see Taylor 1960, 27-28).

These are two of the main topics of this book

— The concern for virtue, which as I will explain is in Plato’s thought the same as a concern for what we would call today personal spirituality.  As illustrated in the passages above, Socratic Platonism is a challenge to change one’s life, not just change one’s beliefs. 

— Serious concern for the truth, in which nothing is considered beyond questioning, and truth is what will withstand the most serious and sustained questioning.

I want to present here a third dimension of Platonist thought – treating it, that is, as a rational way of dealing with “ultimate” questions, questions about what finally matters in human life.  One might think of this as recovering the “religious” dimension of Platonism — Platonism as a fully rational way of dealing with those kinds of ultimate questions that are more often consigned today to matters of religious “faith.”  Platonism so conceived is a kind of reason-based spirituality, whose practice includes critical reasoning aimed at formulating virtue-ideals rationally known to be perfect in their goodness, and then taking these transcendent, “divine” ideals as the focus of one’s ultimate loyalties and commitments.

Julia Annas (1999) shows that so-called “middle-Platonists” in the first two centuries A.D. emphasized two aspects of Plato’s thought that tend to be neglected today, but that accord well with this focus on virtue as what finally matters in life.  One is the idea often strongly asserted by “Socrates” in Plato’s dialogues, that virtue is good for its own sake, apart from any good results produced, and that it is in fact the supreme good in human life, worth sacrificing other goods for.  The other is the idea that becoming virtuous is “becoming like God,” the highest being.  Frantisek Novotny’s comprehensive history of Platonism also shows that this spiritual/religious dimension of Platonism was prominent well into the Renaissance period, as shown for example in the religious Platonism of Marsilio Ficino (a.d. 1433-1499; See Novotny 457-472).

One intention of this book is to develop and present a version of reason-based Platonist spirituality as a live option for interested individuals today.  I also want to develop it as the basis of a “philosophy of religion.”  Platonism so conceived is extraordinary in its ability to begin only with the thoughts and perceptions of ordinary untutored individuals such as Socrates meets on the streets of Athens, and yet use these as the basis for answers to the most fundamental of human concerns.  As the Roman writer Cicero (106-43 b.c.) said “Socrates… was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens and locate her in cities, and even introduced it into homes, getting people to inquire about life and customs, and about things good and bad.” (Tusculan Disputations, 5.4.10-11)

Existential Questions: What Finally Matters

Here then I begin a substantive outline of the version of Platonism I advocate, by presenting an assortment of examples describing what I mean by an “existential” concern with “ultimate questions,” to which I claim this version of Platonism provides rationally well-founded answers.

 – I set myself certain goals. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t. But what goals are really important? If I achieve goals that are themselves unimportant, whether I succeed or not is also not really important. Are there some goals that I should take completely seriously as important in themselves?

 – I try to live up to certain moral standards. My self-esteem depends partly on how well I live up to these standards. But what about the standards themselves? What standards deserve to be taken completely seriously as measures determining whether I am a good person or not?

 – Social pressure, “what the neighbors think of me,” whether others approve or disapprove of me, have a lot of power to determine what I think of myself. But do they deserve this power that they have? Should these be taken completely seriously as standards determining whether I am a good person or not?

 – Sometimes other people, or institutions, make demands on me. I feel good about myself when I meet these demands, and feel guilty or inadequate when I fail. But does this ultimately matter? Are there some demands I should take completely seriously, and others which I should not? Is there anything out there in the world to which I really owe complete and unconditional loyalty? What am I ultimately responsible to, what responsibilities should I take completely seriously?

 — Some experiences I have – falling in love, experiencing nature’s beauty, playing great music – seem very meaningful, soul-satisfying, filling my life with meaning. Other times my life appears relatively boring and meaningless, nothing interesting or important is going on. I’m just taking up space in the world. Sometimes it happens that something feels very meaningful at the time, but it brings no deep and lasting satisfaction, and later appears to have been an unimportant episode.  Is there anything that is absolutely meaningful in itself? Is there some way of telling what is really meaningful and what only appears meaningful?

  — When I come to die, looking back over my life, what kind of life will have been a significant, meaningful life, a life I can be proud of and satisfied with?  Is it possible to lead a “wasted life,” as opposed to a highly worthwhile life, a life in which something happened that is truly important?

   — What kind of world do I live in? The world out there seems to have great power to affect my sense of self-worth and meaning in life. But does anything out there really deserve the power that it has?  Is there anything out there to which I really owe something – owe admiration, respect, loyalty, commitment, conformity?

– Is reality good?  Does the world out there support goodness, or are goodness and reality separate, perhaps opposed to each other?  Is goodness itself really real, or just a dream, separate from “the real world” and in no sense real itself?

It should be emphasized that these are not only, not even primarily, problems for theory.  They are “existential” problems, problems affecting how we see ourselves, how we feel about our lives, potential sources of encouragement or discouragement about life. 

Plato’s “two worlds.”

The Platonist answer to these personal questions consists in a view of “two worlds,” one world “here” (enthade) another separate world “over there” (ekeise).

There is the material/social world “here,” that has most power to affect a person’s senses and feelings – power to confirm or disconfirm a person’s sense of self-worth and meaning in life.

But this world here is at best a changing mixture of good and not good, a world which Plato characterizes as a world where what is right is always “mixed with” what is not-right, what is noble and beautiful is always mixed with what is shameful and ugly.  This means that nothing here deserves my unconditional loyalty. This world here should not be taken with complete seriousness as a context for judging what finally matters.  It is not a good basis for deciding what is truly important and meaningful, or for self-evaluation.  Nothing in this world here deserves to be taken completely seriously when it comes to the kinds of “ultimate” questions described above.

But a good Platonist lives in a reality in which there is another world “over there” separate from this world. This “divine” world is a world of pure and “unmixed” goodness, deserving to be taken with ultimate seriousness, deserving all the respect, admiration, and commitment that I can give it, and deserving to be taken as the true standard for deciding what finally matters.

Here is one of Plato’s descriptions of this otherworld in a conversation between Socrates and a young man Theodorus in Plato’s Theaetetus (176a-c):

Theodorus: If, Socrates, you could persuade all men of the truth of what you say as you do me, there would be peace and fewer evils among mankind.

Socrates: But it is impossible that evils should be done away with… they cannot have their place among the Gods, but must inevitably hover about mortal nature and this region.  So we must try as quickly as possible to flee from here [enthende] to get over there [ekeise].  [Such] fleeing is becoming like God as far as is possible…

God is in no way and in no manner unrighteous, but is most perfectly righteous, and nothing is more like Him than any one among us who becomes the most nearly perfect in rightness as is possible. (My translation after Fowler, 127-28.  “Righteous” is not a very good translation of the Greek dikaios.  As a virtue, I think it is better translated as “right-mindedness,” the habit of making rightness one’s primary concern in life.)

This is a succinct description of Plato’s otherworld existing “over there,” its relation to this world here, and how the ideal Platonist relates to this other world.

The Platonist otherworld over there is populated by what Plato calls “Forms” of virtue, such as the virtue of right-mindedness, or courage, or love, etc.  The Platonic Form of right-mindedness is the virtue of right-mindedness at its most perfect, containing no admixture of unrightness.  This contrasts with the world over here, in which perfect rightness does not exist.  Everything over here in this world is an imperfect and changing mixture of rightness and not-rightness.  The perfect world over there is the reality we should take completely seriously, as the reality before which we must justify our existence.

This describes well the personal, “existential” orientation of the ideal individual Platonist, the otherworldliness that characterizes her way of being in the world.  It also however illustrates well Plato’s metaphorical use of language and imagery.   One might at first think that “fleeing from here to get over there” refers to literal soul-travel, or at least to ignoring this world here and trying to live as though one actually existed in this other world over there.  But Plato makes it clear that this is not what he means. “Taking flight from this world to the other” means “becoming as right-minded as possible” in this world.

The perfect Form of Right-mindedness should serve as what Plato describes elsewhere (Republic 484c, 540a, 592b) as a “paradigm” (paradeigma) on which one should model oneself and one’s own character.  Or to use another Platonist concept: The goal of the ideal Platonist should be to “participate” as closely as possible in the perfect Platonic Form of Right-mindedness, Courage, Love, etc.

Why “perfect” or “divine” virtue-Forms, when “no one is perfect”?  While perfect virtue-Forms are the focus of the ultimate loyalties of the ideal Platonist, her realistic goal is not to actually become perfect.  It is rather to strive toward perfection – or perhaps better, to “strive for moral excellence,” since “being a perfectionist” often has negative connotations today.  As Plato says:

If we discover what Rightness is, will we demand that the righteous man not differ from it in any way, or will we be satisfied if he comes close to it and participates in it…?

It was for the sake of having a model [paradeigma] that we inquired about “What is Rightness Itself?” and if a man became perfectly Right, what kind of person he would be in becoming so — so that… we might be compelled to agree… that whoever is most like those [perfectly righteous men] we will have a kind of existence most like to theirs.

It was not for the sake of proving that it is possible for these things to [actually] exist… Do you think an artist any less [an artist] if, having painted a model [paradeigma] of what would be the most fine man [kallistos] putting in the painting everything important for this, he would not be able to prove that it is possible for such a man to exist?

We are [only] trying to create in words a model [paradeigma] [of Rightness]…. [Republic 472b-e]

Compare this to other fields of endeavor.   We admire individuals who strive for excellence in sports, or music, or learning.  If I want to become an excellent violinist, I do not want to imitate mediocre violinists and model my playing after theirs. To imitate imperfect violin-playing might be to imitate these imperfections – not a way to strive for excellence.  I want to listen to virtuoso violinists instead.  I might never reach their level of excellence.  But I can know that every step I make toward making my playing resemble theirs will bring me closer to excellence.

Philosophy as a Way of Life

It is important to the version of Platonism I propose here to emphasize the pragmatic function of the virtue-Forms in the life of the ideal Platonist, and the characteristics they need to have in order to fulfill this function.  That is,  I focus here on an aspect of Plato’s thought which Pierre Hadot has emphasized (1995, 81-109; 2002, 22-76), Platonism as a way of life.  That is, “Philosophy” for Plato was not yet a professional academic discipline.  To be a Platonist philosopher was to be an individual whose primary loyalties lie in the world of perfect, otherworldly virtue-Forms.  And the primary way in which this commitment should manifest itself is the cultivation of virtue, caring for one’s own soul, “that it might become its best.”

The chief characteristic a Platonic virtue-Form needs to have to fulfill its practical function of guiding virtue-cultivation, is that it needs to represent some particular virtue at its most perfect.  The reason for this is the one just given: An individual must be able to be assured that every step she makes toward participating in a given Form will make her a more good and admirable person.  This would not be true if the virtue-concept I am trying to model my character on is an imperfect mixture of Good and not-Good.  A virtue-concept to model oneself on serves as an ideal norm by which to measure oneself.  And as Plato says, “the imperfect is not the measure of anything” (ateles…. oudenos metron; Republic 504c)

On this understanding, the ethical perfection of Platonic virtue-Forms is the foundation for Platonist spirituality or Plato’s worldview, what it is that needs to be shown to be true about these Forms in order to provide Platonist spirituality and worldview with a solid foundation.  This is what constitutes the otherworldliness or “transcendence” of virtue-Forms: the fact that they transcend in their ethical perfection anything possible in this imperfect world we see in this realm “over here” (enthade) or “here below” (kato).

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