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  • tlefranc10
    Aug 22
    View Source

    Here is a synthesis based on the book "Le nazisme et l'Antiquité" on how Socrates was considered during the Third Reich.

    Socrates was the opposite of Plato. While the latter was almost fully Nordic in race – Günther said that he detected a slight Dinaric influence in Plato's racial origins –, the former had non-Nordic origins. As such, Socrates was rejected as being worthy of study; only a few intellectuals regarded him in a positive way, saying that he fought against sophists, who had for most of them Asiatic origins, to defend Athens and did not hesitate to volunteer for the war. Socrates was described in different ways: as being of mixed-race, as pertaining to the Alpine race, as having Asiatic origins, etc. According to Xenophon, his face was ugly; he was small, sturdy and fat. The concordance between the race of the body and the race of the spirit was quickly made by Third Reich intellectuals. However, according to Günther, what shows best Socrates' non-Nordic origins is his philosophical method: maieutics is not Nordic as it lacks reserve and consists in chattering, asking multiple questions in an impudent manner, etc. There is worse. According to Rosenberg, Socrates' philosophy paved the way to the Stoics,and later eighteenth-century philosophers, as he preached individualism, thus destroying the old Greek conception of the polis. Plato was proved innocent of having propagated "Socratism" as he used Socrates in his texts only as a character to propagate his own ideas, which ultimately aimed at reforming Athens and bringing back a real aristocracy based on racial quality. It is the pupil of Socrates Antisthenes‎, a half-caste with Asiatic origins, who propagated Socrates' teachings. 

    --- In evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "Evola" wrote:
    >
    > It was.
    > It became a value.
    > The value became a concept.
    > The concept became a political slogan.
    > The political slogan became an ideal.
    > The ideal became individual, collective and universal.
    > The universal ideal became law.
    > The collectivist ideal became a social motto.
    > The individual ideal became a belief.
    > As law, as a social motto, and as a belief, it developed into a revolutionary weapon.
    > Croce characterised it as a « religion ».
    > J. Evola called it a « fetishism ».
    >
    > It is no longer more than a word, neurotically parroted by the masses and cantillated on all the media 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Its pathological character cannot be doubted.
    >
    > What J. Evola points out in the introduction to his `Il Mito del Sangue' about race in antiquity can also apply to freedom at that time : « … in aristocratic traditions [racism was not theorised, but experienced]. As a result, it is very rare to find the term `race' in the ancient world : the Ancients did not need to speak of race in the modern sense, since they had race, so to say. »
    >
    > This absolutely fundamental fact has been well discerned by K. A. Raaflaub in his examination of the scarce occurrence of the term `freedom' in archaic Greek literature : « the free – or, more precisely, the noble elite... - did not ordinarily regard their freedom as a fact worth noting. Freedom was thus either unimportant or taken for granted. » (1) In this context, it is normal that « members of Homeric society seem to have thought and talked of freedom only when they perceived a threat to their own freedom, which they had hitherto taken for granted. » (2) The two explanations offered to account for this fact demonstrate a deep understanding of ancient Aryan-derived traditional cultures : « first, generally, the status difference between free and unfree may have meant less in Homeric society than it did later because other social distinctions and criteria were more important and contributed to minimizing that difference. Second, in particular, the scant attention paid to freedom reflects and is based upon specific traits of the elite. Their social organization and relationships, norms and values, ways of thinking, and relations to the community apparently afforded no means by which freedom could attain a high value. » (3) `Freedom' did not play any part in the political life and institutions of the early Hellenes either. « Freedom of speech was no formalized right ; it was simply taken for granted by those who enjoyed it. Freeman status was not recognized as a criterion to determine `rights,' such as participation in assembly or debate ; and the freedom of individuals or the community was no issue of public discussion. » (4)
    >
    > The community was homogenous and organic, and its homogeneity and its organicity were due, as insightfully explained by J. Evola, to the regular and closed hereditary transmission of a force that as a magnet established contacts, created a psychic atmosphere, stabilised the social structure and determined a system of coordination and gravitation between the individual elements and the centre in view of the regular development on the part of single individuals of prenatal determinations on the plane of human existence. It was a racial community, the only community worth of the name, and this explains why, even though full awareness of individual freedom and of its value may have existed from early times, it did not, and could not, transcend individual feelings to the point of leading the `polis' to value highly `freedom' and to conceptualise it. Even better, it was one of the « deep-seated condition in the aristocratic way of life which prevented freedom, in whatever context, from being brought to general attention and entering the political arena as a programmatic rallying cry in its own right. » (5) There was a higher concern, which was the `autonomia' of the `oikos' and of the `polis'. (6)
    >
    > The fact that the nobles took freedom for granted can account for the fact that no positive definition of freedom (`eleutheria') is found in the early Greek literature, and that « From its earliest appearance… eleutheros… forms a pair of opposites with doulos. In Homer donlion emar and eleutheron emar illuminate the same event from two sides. Both expressions are used only when attention is focused on the fact and moment of the loss of freedom… lack of freedom is determined on the one hand by subjugation to force and a foreign will — in other words, by restricted freedom of action — and on the other by loss of protection, home, and country, » so that it seems reasonable to assume that the Homeric idea of `being free' must at the very least include control over one's own person and actions and the security of living in an intact, stable community. (7) The adjective `eleutheros' is « primarily used in a single fixed formula referring to the moment when freedom is lost ; that is, it refers not directly to a person but to a change in the condition of that person. Eleutheros in Homer never designates the status of individuals or a group among the free or dominant part of society in contrast to those who are unfree or dependent. Thought of the community is prompted by only one phrase containing eleutheros. » (8)
    >
    > So we have to understand exactly what caused `freedom' to become a highly praised value, both in the political and in the social sphere. Various consistent assumptions can be put forward : « The customs of war might change so that armed conflicts resulted no longer in the destruction of cities but in their subjugation, and in the enslavement not just of women and children but of men as well. As a result, male slaves would become less exceptional, and with increasing frequency, slavery might change its character, prompting a change in awareness among the free as well. Moreover, free farmers might come to depend on the nobility not merely for the arbitration of conflicts but also economically, which might lead to exploitation and new forms of dependence. Consequently, the loss of freedom would no longer be blamed only on intangibles — war, piracy, or god-sent fate — but on individuals, members of the same community, who were known and could therefore be criticized or attacked. All this might happen not simply in isolated cases but in increasing frequency and according to recognizable patterns. Then again, the aristocratic value system might be questioned and elite power challenged ; in the aristocratic self-perception, new alternatives to status based on predominance might emerge… Finally, the relationship within the community between the private and public spheres might shift ; the latter might become more intense and be structured by regulated institutions, procedures, and laws ; new forms of accruing power might emerge, new identities become possible or be demanded, and the principles previously determining the individual's ability to participate in government lose their validity. » (9) Solonian Athens illustrates to a limited extent the possibility of such developments, which, however, could hardly have occurred without a drop in the aforementioned force, as a result of the interbreeding of some Hellenes castigated by Menexenus. (10)
    >
    > The economic and social crisis of the late seventh century created the conditions for the emergence of a typology of slave and free and for the burgeoning of a concept of political freedom. The small farmer was used to face economic difficulties, which caused him to borrow from wealthy landowners. « Since the farmer's land was inalienable, he could not offer it as a pledge for the loan ; some other item had to be found. In this case it was his own person and that of his family which secured the loan. When he was unable to repay the loan, the lender foreclosed on the pledge and the farmer and his family fell into a state of servitude. » (11). The increased availability of imported slaves, combined with other factors, such as the big impact on grain of the cheaper grain grown by slave labour in the colonies and exported to Attica - the same causes always produce the same effects in economic matters - only made matters worse for him. A stage was reached when a substantial and growing number of small farmers lost their economic freedom and, as a result, were about to lose their civic freedom. Solon banned debt bondage, passed an amnesty law, prohibited loans in future on the security of the debtor's person, and restored the economic and civic freedom of the bonded or enslaved farmers. However, the damage was done : `eleutheria', together with `doule', was infused de facto with a political charge. « The consequences for an entire community of loss of freedom in various forms were experienced in a context other than war and not mainly regarding women and children ; freedom (in the form of the citizen's freeman status) was recognized as a basic precondition for the polis's well-being ; the citizens forged ties of solidarity that reached far beyond the immediate victims of social abuse and assumed responsibility for the individual's freedom so that the entire community could survive and prosper. For the first time, the significance of freedom was understood in its political implications, and awareness of its value became general. » (12)
    >
    > The freedom of the individual, as has been seen, was bound up with `eleutheria' and, more importantly in the eyes of the `polites', with the `autonomia' (having one's own laws, having the power of living and being governed by one's own laws) of the `polis'. The loss of `autonomia', or the threat of losing it, was bound to impinge upon the way `euletheria' was perceived in the community and to give it greater prominence. The Persian invasions of Greece by Darius and by Xerxes in the early fifth century, as told, without, to be sure, any Churchill-like melodramatic, by Herodotus, were certainly crucial for the development of the idea of `eleutheria' along political lines. In `The Histories', « Freedom becomes more than a political… fact ; it is a value that characterizes the Greeks and distinguishes them from their adversaries. » (13) However, it was seen and experienced strictly as a communal fact, and understandingly so, as, in times of war in any political entity, the matter of freedom within it tends to be relegated to a lower priority than that of freedom of it : « Herodotus… deliberately portrayed the Greek war as one of liberation. Time and again he uses the words `freedom' and `servitude', whereas the traditional notions of fame and arete, much more applicable to individuals, appear less and less. » (14). An indication of the increasing perception of freedom as a value and of its conceptualisation is given by his statement that the Greeks were able to achieve victory over the Barbarians' superior power because « they love freedom ».
    >
    > In Thucydides, if `eleutheria' is still used « as an indication of one's personal status, such as the status of a free person, as opposed to that of a slave or a Helot », and as « a description of the personal freedom of action in daily life, » its main sense, against this background, is unsurprisingly that of « the freedom of a community from foreign authority, and as the freedom of Greece from oppression by the Persians. » (15)
    >
    > It was not long before the urge for freedom which had led Greek city-states to form an alliance against foreign domination at the conclusion of the Persian wars boomeranged, developing in internal affairs and exerting an effective influence on the relations between the individual and the city-state. Freedom was invested with such a significance, with such a value, in home affairs, that it became, with equality, the second pillar of democracy. `Eleutheria' developed into a concept as the opposition between free and slave came to be used metaphorically in the political discourse : « Eleutheria was regularly invoked as a basic democratic ideal in debates that contrasted democracy and tyranny. The opposite of this form of eleutheria was being enslaved in a metaphorical sense, i.e. being subjected to a despotic ruler. The concepts of freedom and slavery are transposed from the microcosmos of the household (oikia) to the macrocosmos of the city-state (polis) and used in a metaphorical sense. » (16)
    >
    > By the end of the fifth century, `eleutheria' had thus become a concept in three different contexts. In the social sense, `eleutheros' meant to be free as opposed to being a slave. In the political sense, `eleutheros' took on the meaning of « autonomous as against being dominated by others », as illustrated by the call to fight for the freedom of all Greek states against the barbarians in the Persian wars, and, later, by Demostenes' call to defend it from Macedonian domination. « As a constitutional concept, however, eleutheria was associated both with political participation in the public realm and personal freedom in the private realm. » (17) If, of course, `euletheria" was highly praised as a social and political concept by both oligarchies and democracies, the aspect of `eleutheria' that was rejected by both the oligarchs and the monarchs was the constitutional one, that which pertains, not to the external policy of the `polis', but to its internal policy. Besides, the fact that monarchies and oligarchies emphasised the freedom of the `polis', whereas the ultima ratio of democracies seems to have been the freedom within the `polis', is immensely suggestive.
    >
    > The second major stiff problem with Athenian democracy from an aristocratic standpoint is not really that it was a majority rule political system, since the democratic body of citizen was constituted of only the adult males of Athenian descent, (18), that is, a very small minority of the population, a criteria which, if applied to modern democracies on our continent, would result in the ineligibility of masses of political schemers currently in office in countries like France and in the exclusion of the political institutions, of the whole political sphere, of the most sincere apologists of this political system and of the so-called `freedom of speech'. The problem lies in the idealisation of the concept of freedom : « as a democratic ideal eleutheria (in the sense of personal freedom) applied not only to citizens but also to metics and sometimes even to slaves. Thus, a slave, who in the social sphere was deprived of eleutheria, might well, in a democratic polis, be allowed a share in, for example, freedom of speech, though only privately and of course not in the political assemblies » (19) - this point cannot be emphasised enough. It is only one step further to argue, minus the pathos, that « Freedom began its career as a social value in the desperate yearning of the slave to negate what, for him or her, and for nonslaves, was a peculiarly inhuman condition », that, to be more specific, « Freedom began its long journey in the Western consciousness as a woman's value », (20) provided that sight is not lost of the fact that this degenerative process started at a later period of Greek culture than that we are here noticing, when the relatively low number of slaves and their effective integration into the `oikos' prevented them from developing a socially-oriented `group (self-)consciousness', and patriarchy was still intact.
    >
    > Generally speaking, the rise of democracy fostered an increased interest in the `individual' in more than one way, whereby every concept came to be interpreted in a subjective and relativist manner. (21) With Protagoras' statement that « "man is the measure of all things" the figure of the naturally free and self-serving individual entered the historical scene. This spirit of individualism set the Sophists against the objectivism of both the traditional understandings of physis and nomos. » Traditionally, `nomos' is the divine economy of Zeus, on which human justice must model ; (22) from Hesiod to the Pseudo-Demosthenes, an uninterrupted series of authors assert that the `nomos' is Zeus will, in keeping, as rightly stated in `Revolt against the Modern World', with the transcendent realism on which the traditional notion of law (`rta') is based. In early Greek culture, « the nomoi and physis were one and the same. Legal authority did not ultimately rest in a pyramidal hierarchy of officials in a city-state nor in a similar hierarchy of gods and goddesses in the netherworld. The nomos-physis binary was unnecessary as an explanatory or justificatory tool. Laws just seemed to be all-controlling. They were not written down in scripts such as Solon's Code. The unwritten laws could not even be identified with a personalized author or source. Being unwritten and authorless, the laws could not be traced to some higher authority. Indeed, legal authority did not rest with an authorizing origin or arche to which conventions could be traced. Nor were they the subject of reflection when enforced. And yet, the unwritten laws were believed to constrain both the gods and tribal members. The constraints seemed natural, universal, everlasting and uncontrollable. No mortal could ignore or override the universal spirits of the netherworld. » (23) Traditional man « either ignored or considered absurd the idea that one could talk about laws and the obedience due them if the laws in question had a mere human. origin—whether individual or collective. Every law, in order to be regarded as an objective law, had to have a `divine' character. Once the `divine' character of a law was sanctioned and its origin traced back to a nonhuman tradition, then its authority became absolute ; this law became then something ineffable, inflexible, immutable and beyond criticism. » (24)
    >
    > Later, the term took on a political dimension within the context of the polis. It was conceived of as an embodiment of the `polis', and absolute precondition for its existence (« where the laws have no authority there is no constitution. » (Pol. IV.41292a32-33)) It meant `anything assigned', `custom', `usage', 'law', `ordinance made by authority', `rule' as an authoritative, prescriptive direction for moral and legal conduct, `convention', and, as the transcendent basis of `nomos' became obscured and `nomos' came to be understood in a legal and rationalist sense, this `convention', now seen as based on human criteria alone, was bound to be challenged, opposed and impugned. « The people of the society agreed to be governed by certain rules. The only sanction for such rule was that it had been agreed upon by the citizens, and it could be changed at their subsequent pleasure. This conception of law became possible beginning in the second half of the fifth century BC because of the presocratic philosophers or physiologoi.
    >
    > « The physiologoi had secularized the universe and all that was within it. They removed from the cosmic scene the Homeric gods and their allied divine forces. The world as a whole was physis, whatever is, and there was in physis no place for the gods. Secondly, the universe did not owe its existence to divine intervention. The initial attempts by some of the presocratics like Thales or Anaximenes to find a universal substance from which all else in the universe was derived evolved into explaining, as Heraclitus for example attempted to do, the unvarying principles which governed the operation of the universe. Common to these speculative thinkers was the assumption that all that took place in the universe was interaction among its parts which had the same physis or nature. Anaxagoras attempted to propose mind or an intelligent principle as underlying the workings of the universe, but he reduced such a principle to mechanical operation immanent within the world. The order of the universe was imposed by physis itself and did not come from a source outside it.
    >
    > « The attempts of some of the earlier presocratics like Heraclitus and Anaximander to find common principles which applied to both the physical world and the moral and political world of man were jettisoned by the later atomistic philosophers. Democritus and Leucippus, who removed from physis any relationship to human values. Values could only be human and agreed upon by convention among men. Democritus affirmed the separation of nomos from physis : "by convention [nomos] are sweet and bitter, hot and cold, by convention is colour : in truth are atoms and the void." » (25) The distinction between `nomos' and `physis' would govern the development of Greek political thought and, by implication, of Greek thought on freedom from the second half of the fifth century onward. Whether it was first articulated in Hippocrates of Kos' `Peri aeron, hydaton, kai topon' (`Airs, Waters, and Places'), (26) or by Archelaus, the Ionian physicist and teacher of Socrates, it is not by chance that this distinction incubated in the `mixing of cultures' that took place in the Peloponnesian wars, of which these physicists were contemporaries, and which saw a deep change in the economic circumstances. « The growing complexity of life in the Greek city-states generated a demand for technical knowledge because of the growth of business, manufacturing and trade. Political leaders had to acquire the necessary knowledge and skill to deal effectively with the economic, social and political problems arising from the increase in all forms of commercial activity. » (27) A group of itinerant professional teachers were able to cater for such needs, as long as one could pay their fee : the Sophists.
    >
    > Despite their lack of interest in scientific ideas and activities, they came to depend heavily upon pre-Socratic philosophy in terms of both form and content. « They consciously attempted to apply the methods of abstract thought that had been developed by the speculative philosophers for explaining the physical universe to practical questions of public and private life. And this led rapidly to a series of crucial questions about the origins and legitimacy of law and morality. » (28) Not all Sophists supported `physis' against `nomos' as the primary source of human law, customs, and mores. Not all the Sophist supporters of the primacy of `physis' went as far as Antiphon in claiming that there are no natural grounds for distinguishing either between high and low birth or between different races, « since by nature we are all made to be alike in all respects, both barbarians and Greeks. » (29) « This does not mean, however, that the majority of Sophist ideas on politics, religion, or morality were traditional or conservative. Nor does it mean that their doctrines were not fundamentally shaped in response to the doctrines of pre-Socratic natural philosophy. The Sophistic supporters of nomos differed from traditionalists largely because they could no longer accept the notion that conventions were divinely inspired and sanctioned. They developed a new notion of the significance of convention in human affairs.
    >
    > « The framework for the Sophists' new discussions of the meaning of human conventions developed out of questions raised by pre-Socratic philosophers concerning the possibility of knowing or learning the nature of the universe. Science is a search for universally valid knowledge, and the notion of validity implies some criteria, either for testing the conformity of our knowledge to the reality it purports to illuminate or for otherwise judging the `truth' of our knowledge. The question of validity never arose — at least in a conscious and explicit way — in connection with traditional religious and mythopoetic understandings of the world. The appropriateness of a traditional myth was established by its very survival, and mutually contradictory mythopoetic accounts of any given phenomena or social practice seemed to be tolerated without generating overt unease. The notion of establishing some criterion for assessing the validity of knowledge, however, was a critical problem for the pre-Socratics. And from the outset it led in two closely related but separable directions. » (30)
    >
    > According to Democritus, who was the first to explore the second, our knowledge of the world is derived from sensory experience. « That the experiences of all men should be largely the same (i.e., universal) arises from the fact that we are similarly constituted and that we are all affected by the same events. These events give rise to sensations when the atoms of external objects interact with the atoms that make up human beings, and we simply agree among ourselves to call certain kinds of sensations by certain names. But it is possible for a variety of reasons… for different individuals to experience the same real events somewhat differently. Thus, although sensory evidence underlies our knowledge of reality, there is no strict one to one correlation between real events and our perceptions of them. The basic regularity of experience is overlaid by a contextually determined variability. » (31) It was the Democritean emphasis on the possibility of subjective sensory states that the Sophists retained to develop their moral and political core arguments. Archelaus, a student of the naturalist philosopher Anaxagoras before becoming Socrates' teacher, and a man held to mark the turning point of Greek philosophy from natural to human themes, stepped into the breach, arguing that « if hot and cold, bitter and sweet, have no existence in nature but are simply a matter of how we feel at any particular time, then we can hardly suppose that justice and injustice or right and wrong could have a more constant and less subjective existence… Some early arts, like medicine and agriculture, merely assist the forces of nature, and may have substantial power. But political art and legislation are quite removed from nature. They are artificial, as are the gods, varying from place to place according to local customs. Because both the gods and the laws exist by convention and artifice, justice has nothing to do with nature but owes its existence entirely to design. And if justice is merely an artificial human creation, then it is subject to change at any time that humans choose to re-create it. » (32)
    >
    > So « In place of the old understandings, the Sophists introduced a contrast between physis and nomos of their own. On the one hand, laws were dismissed as artificial human creations which lacked any objective foundation in justice. On the other, nature was reduced to the free play of human passions and instincts. At its most radical, the Sophists claimed that nomos was an unjustifiable and artificial curb on the natural operations of physis. The real task of the legal philosopher was to free physis from these contingent constraints. » (33) `Nature' was praised as `being free', as opposed to the `constraints of the law'. This view was expressed in its most radical form by Callicles, the person credited with coining the phrase "natural law".
    >
    > Under the influence of the Sophists, or, at least, of some Sophists, not only `physis' became the measure of all things ethical, and `nomos' was lowered down to a corpus of mere arbitrary conventions, but also the very terms `physis' and `nomos' came to be used in a sense entirely different from that traditionally attached to them. What was conceived of as one and immutable, in that it was attributed to the gods, was `physis' and no longer `nomos', now thought to be valid only in certain groups and in certain peoples, on the grounds of the emphasis put on the mutability of customs.
    >
    > This opposition did not remain `wisely' in the field of philosophical speculation and science, but was soon used to justify attacks on tradition in the ethical and political field. The relativity promoted by the Sophists on the ontological plane was logically reflected in their ethical and political conceptions.
    >
    > Ethically, the assumption of the primacy of nature led to « enhance in nature the power of self-affirmation and the overbearing quality of the passions, » to claim that natural instincts should be allowed to have their sway. « Any citizen can justify a conduct on the basis of what he deems to be his own `physis', that is to say, of his own best interests, or legitimate his fight for another `nomos', which, while being just as relative, is more advantageous to him. » (34) The revolutionary significance of this Sophistic analysis of the law did not escape the notice of Antiphon's commentators, nor Plato's. (35)
    >
    > Politically, it served to discredit the sovereignty of the `polites' and, more generally, to challenge the laws of the state ; freedom came not to be regarded any longer as a political status enjoyed exclusively by free-born citizens possessing the right and the duty to participate in the life of the state and thus eligible to public offices, but as a natural quality possessed by all human beings without distinction of race, of sex, and of social and economic condition. The Sophist Alcidamas declared that : « God has made all men free ; nature made none a slave. » (Aristotle, Rhet. 1373b 18 (ed. Rabe. p.74)) « And this was no idle school declamation ; it formed part of a stirring appeal to all Hellas in favour of the Messenian helots then struggling for their liberty against the Spartan power. » (36) Because of the subjectivist implications of the Sophistic moral relativism that posited that all legal distinctions between individuals were purely arbitrary, that `nomos', the law itself, was purely artificial, there soon lingered the idea that all human beings were entitled to rights, and, one thing leading to another, to equal rights. (37) « Lycophron called for the abolition of the privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy, Alcidamas set out to abolish slavery, Phaleas demanded equality with regard to property and education for all citizens and Hippodamus was the first to sketch the contours of an ideal polity. The Sophists even used the physis/thesis opposition to formulate a demand for political equality between men and women. » (38)
    >
    > The ethical and political implications of Sophistic philosophy were the logical result of its theoretical principle, that « the individual Ego can arbitrarily determine what is true, right and good, » and that, since « all thought rests solely on the apprehensions of the senses and on subjective impression… therefore we have no other standard of action than utility for the individual. » (39) That was not all : if Sophism was a protest against the existing state of things, against the `nomos', there was one law to which the Sophist had to submit unconditionally : that « which every human can discover by a persevering examination of himself. » (40)
    >
    > « For Aristotle and his contemporaries, perception was essentially a cognitive process, apprehending the forms of sensible objects without the matter. Such apprehension of external objects was regarded as direct, the awareness as awareness of the objectively real character of things. A mind as such perceiving was foreign to their modes of thinking… In the earlier period, therefore, mind was studied in its manifestations in nature and society ; with the close of ancient speculation, the investigation was based predominantly on introspection and the analysis of mental operations of the individual thinker. » (41) Then, « The Sophist discovered the world to be himself and hence all inquiry had a personal aim. Doubting any positive knowledge of the world of nature, he turned to the more comprehensible life in society. Now appeared the first attempt at a study of mind, which was further developed by Socrates. Thus the Sophists from an individualistic, and Socrates with his followers from a universalistic standpoint investigated the human mind in its social aspect. » (42)
    >
    > It remained for the Cynics to bring the Sophistic views on `nature' and `freedom' to the next level along these subjectivist lines.
    >
    > For man, as perceived by the Cynics, « `nature' clearly meant the functions and processes and sensations which constitute man's life. With these he must put himself in agreement.
    >
    > The intimations of sense and instinct were the sure utterance of nature, convincing and unimpeachable ; in agreement with them, virtue and will would find their natural exercise, and attain full and undivided self-realisation. The one sufficient way to happiness lay in obedience to the primary mandates of Nature, as expressed in impulses of appetite, of function, and of natural propensity, and satisfied by inner self-satisfaction of the will. Centring on these, the wise man would refuse to implicate himself in disturbing sensibilities, or in any gratuitous distractions of thought or affection or exterior deference or obligation. Praise, blame, and the whole array of social sanctions were extraneous to the man's own nature, and must not be suffered to impair that unconditional self-assertion and self-mastery which were indispensable to moral independence. Still less could any weight attach to purely external appendages, such as wealth, rank, costume, reputation, or environment. These things are not to be decried as in themselves baneful or undesirable or to be regarded as temptations, which the wise man must by virtue of his profession eschew ; they fall strictly into the same category as their opposites, poverty or squalor or obloquy. The inner satisfaction is found in ignoring, not in mortifying the desires. » (43)
    >
    > This general picture of the Cynic conception of `nature' already suggests how unwise it is to draw parallels, as once did G. Stucco, between the Cynic approach to freedom and J. Evola's, if only because the emphasis is put on `autarkeia' in both. In fact, J. Evola's `autarkeia' and the Cynics' are diametrically opposed. Indeed, to the followers of Diogenes, the attainment of sufficiency required the return to a natural state. « The Cynics held that the lower animals were superior to men in some respects, since they were independent of shoes, clothing, shelter and special preparation of their food and that they were worthy of imitation in these respects as far as men were able. » (44) They took the dog as their model, not « the watch dog, the house dog or the hunting dog, but the homeless and ownerless vagrant. » (45) The vagrant ownerless dog was free and on this account was regarded by the Cynics as worthy of emulation, in their quest for freedom and happiness. Whether The Cynics sought happiness through freedom or freedom through happiness is not entirely clear from the primary sources, and is still a matter of debate among commentators. In the first case, Cynic freedom would not be purely negative : `freedom from' things, « from desires, from fear, anger, grief and other emotions, from religious or moral control, from the authority of the city or state or public officials, from regard for public opinion and freedom also from the care of property, from confinement to any locality and from the care and support of wives and children », (46) from marriage (Pseud. Diog., Epist. 47, 1-6, in M. Billerbeck, Epiktet. Von Kynismus, Brill, Leyde, 1978, p. 131) and even from procreation (47), would have an object : happiness…
    >
    > Cynicism is a form of eudemonism, and, as such, an immanent ethics. But « those who point "the way of happiness" in order to make man follow a certain behaviour" must be responded with incredulity : « 'But what does happiness matter to us ?' » (48) Besides, « The philosophical concern with freedom as a good of the individual's soul rather than of the body », « with the freedom of the individual and his mind apart from government and society…,» (49) which contributed enormously to the growth of individualism and humanism, is radically opposed to actual freedom, which lies nowhere else than in man's « superiority to his own individuality » (50), when unconditional authority was given by the Cynics to the criteria of individual experience and will.
    >
    > What's more, the Cynic conception and practice of askesis, a cornerstone of this movement, in which it is supposed to lead one to sufficiency and freedom, bears the most superficial and peripheral resemblance to the `Doctrine of Awakening'. The Cynic is an ascetic « by compromise rather than upon principle, a precaution and in some sense a confession of weakness, rather than a counsel of perfection… » To regain « one's true nature, » the Cynic is expected to go through `ponoi' (`suffering'), `athloi' (contests') and much `talaiporia' (`wretchedness, misery'). « These words are most associated with athletics, the Olympic Games and their mythic founder, Heracles. Heracles' twelve labours were athloi ; according to Cynic and Stoic allegory, he endured them for the good of mankind. He killed the Nemean Lion with his bare hands, shot down the Stymphalian Birds, and in general cleared the earth of monsters and criminals, so great was his philanthropia. All of this was hard labour, athlos. The related adjective athlos means `wretched' and `in pain', and an athlete (athletes) is literally one who is in pain, either because he is training for competition, or competing in the hot dust at the Games themselves. Another word that the Cynics played on is ponos, meaning both `labour' and `pain' at once (e.g. D. Chr. 8.16 ; Epict. Ench. 29.6-7)… The Cynics played even more extensively on this conceit, as they undergo ascetic `labours' to train themselves for the wise, natural life. These ponoi involve physical pain : rolling in the hot sand, embracing snowy statues, walking barefoot on snow and enduring summer heat, winter cold, hard beds and little food. Their labours also include exercises in disappointment and psychological pain. » (51) Even though Cynic asceticism may be described as « a cheerful and hedonistic, not a world-denying, asceticism », as Cynics « paradoxically welcomed pain as a necessary condition of elemental pleasure » and « Askesis made them true hedonists, to such an extent that they might even get pleasure in their self-chosen pains : "the scorn of pleasure is the greatest pleasure" (DL 6.71) », (52) it is certainly no accident that so great a connoisseur of Christian asceticism as Origen singles out « Antisthenes, Diogenes and Crates as champions of pagan asceticism and likens them to the Hebrew prophets ; even more radically, he implicitly compares them with Christ (C. Cels. 2.41, 7.7 ; cf. 6.28). » (53)
    >
    > The widespread view that Cynicism was a way of life rather than a doctrine calls for some nuance. With the later Cynics `kaprepia' (`endurance') came to mean the ability to endure the hardships incident to the Cynic form of life. With respect to poverty, another cardinal virtue of Cynic ethics, « the avoidance of money seems to have been a theory and a tradition with the later Cynics, rather than an actual practice. » Cynic expressions in regard to pleasure lack consistency : Crates of Thebes, a pupil of Diogenes, « held that pleasure seeking was a form of slavery and should be avoided. The Cynics retained this idea as a theory but did not always carry it into practice. But the idea gained prevalence that pleasures were to be found in the Cynic form of life and this probably facilitated acquiring converts. » Finally, it seems that, after all, words spoke louder than action in the Cynics' commitment to « defacing the currency » : « Parrhesia was a political prerogative at the time : it granted all Athenian citizens the right to voice their opinions at public assemblies. When the Cynics, many of them wanderers or exiles, laid claim to parrhesia, they brazenly appropriated and transformed the notion. They turned parrhesia, once the state-sanctioned privilege of the few, into the prerogative, indeed duty, of all human beings, and they broadened the concept to signify not only the right to speak out publicly on matters that concerned the polis but also the right to speak one's mind in any and all circumstances, on public as well as private matters, whether formally invited to do so or not. » (54)
    >
    > « The main importance of this school lies in the fact that it was the first to abandon altogether the ideal of the city-state… The theoretical basis for the Cynic philosophy is the assumption that the wise man, of whom Socrates is supposed to be the type, is completely self-sufficing. Only that which is fully within his power, that is, the world of his own thought and character, can be necessary to make a happy life. Everything except moral character is indifferent, and in this wide circle of the indifferent the Cynic includes not only the amenities and even the decencies of life, but also property and marriage, family and citizenship, learning and good repute, and all the practices and conventions and pieties of civilization. For the wise man is ruled by the law of virtue and not by the law of any city. He will not desire even the independence of his native city. It follows that for the Cynic the only true social relation is that between wise men, and, as wisdom is universal in its nature, the relation has nothing to do with the local limits of earthly cities. All wise men everywhere form a single community, the city of the world, which is the only true state. To the wise man no local custom is foreign or strange, for he is a citizen of the world. He stands out as intrinsically superior to all the conventional and customary stratifications of society… All the customary distinctions of Greek social life could thus be subjected to an annihilating criticism. Rich and poor, Greek and barbarian, citizen and foreigner, freeman and slave, well-born and base-born are reduced at a stroke to a common level. »
    >
    > « In the Cynic school, then, we see the first appearance of cosmopolitanism, and not without reason did the ancients themselves perceive a relation between this philosophy and the rise of the Macedonian empire. Nevertheless, there was little that was positively significant in the cosmopolitanism of the Cynics. » (55) The Cynic politeia, the Cynic `state' is nothing other than a moral `state' : that is, the `state' of being a Cynic. » (56) Cosmopolitanism was produced by the intellectualisation and the psychologisation of personal freedom : « Turning inward, the philosopher rejects the constraints of the institutions that were previously thought to form the citizen's character. Rather than protecting freedom as a value that is essential for political participation, the Cynics sought to defend freedom from the political sphere, which they saw as an external constraint imposed on naturally free humans… The freedom that it seeks to protect is universal ; it is treated as the highest of goods to be protected against political institutions' particular demands. » (57)
    >
    > Cynic cosmopolitanism was « a leveling attack upon the city-state and all its typical social institutions. It looks not so much to the setting up of a new social principle as to the destruction of all civic ties and the abolition of all social restrictions. It aims at a return to nature in a sense which makes nature the negation of civilization. The Cynic philosopher, dirty, witty, contemptuous, shameless, a master of billingsgate, is the earliest example of the philosophical proletarian. » (58)
    >
    > The Cynics did much to pave the way for Christianity « by destroying respect for existing religions, by ignoring distinctions of race and nationality and by instituting an order of wandering preachers claiming exceptional freedom of speech. Tertullian says that early Christian preachers adopted the Cynic cloak (De Pallio 6), and Augustine mentioned the club or staff as the only distinctive feature of the Cynics (De Civitate Dei 14, 20). Julian mentioned the similarity of methods of the Cynics and the Christians in their public discourses and their collections of contributions (7, 224). Lucian describes cooperation between Cynics and Christians (Peregrinus). The early Christians worked side by side with
    >
    > Cynics for three hundred years and were to some extent influenced by them. We do not know of any early Christian arts, music, literature or sciences. Early Christian orders of priesthood accepted celibacy and poverty as virtues. The Dominicans explained their designation by saying that they were "Domini canes" (dogs of the Lord). » (59)
    >
    > « Diogenes became a Stoic hero, playing the role in their literature of a model wise man. » (60), even though, to use a most felicitous expression, it was Diogenes without the hub. To Juvenal, the only distinction between the Cynics and the Stoics lay in the coat they wear. The Stoic doctrines contained little that had not been taught by its predecessors : the self-sufficiency of virtue, the identification of virtue with knowledge, the unconditional supremacy of the moral will in the determination of life, the independence and responsibility of the individual as the unit of morality, the distinction of things good, evil, and indifferent, the ideal picture of the wise man, the whole withdrawal from the outer world within the precincts of the mind, and the strength of a moral will, are ideas taken from the Cynics. (61)
    >
    > The personal touch they added to previous `Greek' philosophical schools was however decisive in their success.
    >
    > « Aristotle had viewed the world as a system of specific forms ; these complete organisms could be explained by studying the parts in reference to the whole, as means to an end. Thus his investigation of soul was a biological treatise in which development, the transition from potentiality to realization, was the keynote. The underlying motive was the desire to exhibit the universal form in the empirical data of nature and life, since the universal exists potentially in the concrete.
    >
    > « Aristotle's problem was determined by his epistemological position (based on the Socratic concept and the Platonic mediation between ideas and particulars) that universals are the only objects of scientific knowledge and that the concrete particulars, reality in the strict sense, are presented in sense-perception. Hence no regulating principle was demanded or furnished ; and the search for it became the dominant problem of post-Aristotelian philosophy.
    >
    > « Discarding the Aristotelian conception of transcendence, the Stoics developed the other side of the latent dualism, the view of the world as an organism, by adopting the Heraclitean notion of primordial fire, eternal, divine, possessed of thought and will. All existing things partake of this divine substance which appears as hold or bond of union in inorganic matter, as vital principle in plants, irrational soul in animals, and rational soul in man. Together with significant contrasts in ethics the ideal of Aristotle was carried to its logical conclusion ; but a new spirit was introduced with the doctrine of universal law and still more by the ever-increasing emphasis on will, self-determination, which involved a practical instead of a theoretical standard of life. The concrete was the object of study ; but not the individual in general so much as the particular person. The introduction of assent or acknowledgment into the cognitive process by Zeno was the entering wedge of the subjective standpoint. As the volitional attitude gradually became basal in psychology and epistemology, the need of a standard became imperative. It is possible to trace in the older Stoicism the growing emphasis on assent as fundamental in knowledge, the increasing skill in psychological analysis, while the criterion of truth remained distinctly objective. The problems thus raised were bequeathed to the Middle Stoa ; then the stress fell on attention and the need of reason in all forms of knowing was recognized. In later Stoicism the judgment, the interpretation, the "view" became of sole importance. The relation between universal and particular, abstract and concrete, remained a vexing problem while the tendency was ever toward a subjective interpretation of the universal. Thus when the individual as such asserted himself, the will began to be treated as a specific function, just as Aristotle in contrast to Plato had discriminated activity from the other functions of the soul ; the more analytic point of view tended toward a transformation of the philosophical attitude. » (62)
    >
    > To Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, ethics was the climax of philosophy ; so the study of human nature in its individual and social aspects was basal. Moreover, his physics is eminently psychological. It works on the assumption that « (1) The whole universe is governed by the providence of God. This providence is the activity of his Reason, his Logos, which is expressed in the world as the Law of Nature. (2) Man is the only creature in the world which has been endowed by God with reason, and this is a bond between God and man… The "highest reason" is simply the Logos working in nature ; but there is the necessary implication that the Logos is a moral force, at least in its subjective aspect, in the minds of men. » (63) While, in Cleanthes, the successor to Zeno as the scholarch of the Stoic school in Athens, nature was used as an objective factor character and the emphasis was put on the unification of macrocosm and microcosm and the agreement of nature and the universal law, the main interest for Chrysippus, his pupil, was centred on human nature, harmony and rational control of though and action, and, in general, `virtue'. « In the Middle Stoa the introspective attitude came to be distinctly recognized and employed. The consequent difficulties with the objective criterion and the still more emphasized assent brought these philosophers to find some solution in a subjective standpoint… Panaetius held that knowledge and morality must be based on the logos common to all men, and that differences in opinion are due to the specific character of the individual reason… This insistence on the universality implied in rational thought in opposition to the individualistic point of view of the Skeptics combined with due recognition of individual differences signalized the adoption of a subjective standpoint. This attitude is also manifest in the Platonic conception of soul held by Posidonius [of Apamaia, in Syria]. For the difference in point of view is significant : no explanation is required, said the Stoic, introspection is the only verification needed. The transition from social to introspective psychology had been definitely accomplished. » (64) « While in the Middle Stoa the introspective analysis was concerned predominantly with the problem of knowledge, in Roman Stoicism as inaugurated by Cicero and continued by Seneca it was in ethics that the subjective attitude developed… In the transition from the teleological to the jural view of morality and from an external to an internal standard in which Stoicism played the chief role, Cicero is of great importance in the history of ethics. His belief in the importance of the state and the duty of citizenship is dearly set forth ; but in his strictly ethical works the individualistic standpoint is prominent. » (65)
    >
    > Seneca made further advance toward a subjective standpoint by defining « reason primarily in individual terms, as human nature, and not as a part of the rational cosmos ; this is what is referred to as identity today : "Animum intuere, qualis quantusque sit" (76.32). The self in its rational scrutiny of itself ("se sibi adplicere"), in its use of its own rational resources to manage its relation to the world in fulfillment of its own nature, comes its own gaudium. » (66) He gave ethics an introspective turn by associating moral progress with self-knowledge, confession of faults, and self-examination. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius put an even greater emphasis on self-consciousness, the latter from an individual standpoint, the latter from a universalist standpoint. « The emphasis which Epictetus put on reflective consciousness finds its climax in the self-consciousness involved in his doctrine of the daemon, the divine element in man, reason as the better self, conscience. For Posidonius the daemon had been the objective, unchangeable, divine nature in man ; for these later Stoics the daemon was subject to modification for better and worse as an explanation of the reality of sin. In Epictetus, the feeling of the high destiny and worth of man is intense, the close connection with God is vital. The inner consciousness of the divine is the dearest and most certain fact of experience. The likeness to God is moral rather than intellectual ; in respect to will the ressemblance is perfect. » (67) In keeping with this moral standpoint, the centre of moral life is not so much identified with apprehending and knowing as with feeling and willing. Man's good is the will and progress consists in the exercise and in improvement of the will. The inner self is the object of all analysis in the `Meditations'. « In this self the immanence of the indwelling God comes to light. » (68) « Man's brotherhood with all mankind is not by blood or physical descent but by community in mind ; and each man's mind is God, an efflux of deity. In social relations all considerations must be directed toward men's inner self. Civil obligation was thus superseded by the cosmic ; citizenship became world-citizenship in the Dear City of God. This conception came to include the whole range of social duties and endeavor, and because of the position of the emperor was invested with new conviction and reality. In the hands of the great jurists the lex naturae was being formulated jus naturale which Stoic influences helped to secure as the moral basis of the imperial code of laws. Cosmopolitanism thus became self-consciousness of Rome's mission. Too exclusive emphasis on reason and the intolerance that results from purely individualistic morality were ameliorated by recognition of the social bond. Although Stoicism from the first had insisted on inwardness of morality and hence on disposition and motive, at the beginning mere self-consistency satisfied the demand of conformity to nature. Such self-centered egoism proved a failure in the relation of the individual to society. Hence gradually, while the emphasis on the motive and on self-consciousness was increased, the social outlook was broadened so that the individual was in peril of being absorbed in the cosmic world. It was in the stress of this conflict that the subjective point of view developed. For this conception of a cosmic order, of a cosmic standard, cosmic interrelationship and cosmic duty were based on self-consciousness. It was "within the little field of self" that M. Aurelius found the ground of all reality », (69) the basis of right conduct.
    >
    > « From its inception and throughout its history Stoicism insisted on this interaction of the human and the divine, the individual and the whole. All speculation must start from things human and advance continuously to the divine, all-comprehending principle of existence. The theoretical cannot be severed from the practical, was a Stoic maxim. The material monism of Zeno had included everything — inorganic and organic, thought, feeling, will, man and God — under the category of matter ; hence metaphysical materialism. For conduct an equally comprehensive rule was laid down. When philosophy was looking for a canon of right living, a formula to serve as a standard, "nature," which had been the subject of investigations for centuries, met with universal favor. » (70)
    >
    > Like Diogenes, the Stoics considered philosophy as a way of life, as a practice (`askesis'), and adopted from the Cynics various techniques, such as apatheia and parrhesia, but rejected the latter's animalistic aspects of scandalous behaviour and provocative dialogue that were regarded by Cynics as necessary steps to a life « according to nature » ; the nature to which the Stoics had in mind and wished to return was however different : « They looked to the ideal, and refused to copy the habits either of the lower animals or of primitive man. Hence, they rose to the conception of a pure and noble individual, sharer in the divine, and of a universal brotherhood of mankind and preached the necessity of the individual regarding himself as a citizen of the world and discharging social duties. » (71) « `Return to nature,' so far from implying reversion to animalism, and the reduction of man's needs to the level of the beasts, was found to involve fundamental differentiation of reasoning man from the unreason of the brute or the inertia of matter, to place man on a unique spiritual plane, and eventually to summon him from individual isolation to conscious brotherhood with kind and harmony of will with God… » So, for man « to live according to nature » means « the concordance of human actions with the law of nature, the conformity of the human will with the Divine Will, life according to the principle that is active in nature and in which the human soul shares. The Stoics in this fashion cancelled out the difference between nature and reason : to act according to reason and to act according to nature are identical, law and nature are united because the law is the product of reason ; therefore, we are allowed to think in terms of a natural law. The ethical end of the Stoic sage, his summum bonum, is perforce submission to the divinely appointed order of the universe. But it must be now made clear that man conforms his conduct to his own essential nature, reason. Both statements are in fact identical, since the universe is governed by the law of nature. It is therefore plain that the universal law of nature is, simultaneously, the ruling principle of the cosmos as well as the goal and norm of man. Among the Stoics, it follows no difference exists between the ethical fulfillment of the individual, the ethical fulfillment of the entire community of man…, and the rational law of nature. » (72)
    >
    > To be sure, to act according to reason and to act according to nature were identical insofar as the correct use of reason allowed one to grasp nature as a universal order. If a person did not use reason to guide his actions and to follow nature, such person was no better than an animal.
    >
    > « One of the first effects of the reinstatement of reason in its `natural' place was to reintroduce the whole order of `things indifferent' to the purview of morals. So long as virtue was solely right condition and exercise of will, acting upon the intimations of instinct and sense, no alternative was possible but absolute acceptance or rejection ; no intermediate course, no parleying or suspension of decision, could be allowed without admitting the fallibility, and surrendering the independent autocracy of the moral organ. But with the appearance of reason on the scene, with its power of discrimination, of valuation, and, above all, of `suspense,' the position changed. Technically, indeed, the supremacy and independence of the will was left untouched, and its disregard of things indifferent was as unqualified and uncompromising as its rejection of things undesirable but reason, notwithstanding, made allowances which the virtuous will could not admit ; it established from its own point of view classifications and degrees of merit, it attached conditional values and preferential claims to recognition, according as things tended to advance or to retard the life according to nature, and so reduced the number of things strictly indifferent to a remnant which stood out of all determining relation with the will, and to which reason itself could not ascribe such secondary value, positive or negative. » (73)
    >
    > « By these steps Stoicism entirely altered the physiognomy of the `Wise Man.' Reason, when once its place in Nature was vindicated and re-established, tended to become the dominant partner in each exercise of will. It alone could supply criteria of self-conformity, and interpret and direct the impulses of sense ; it alone could justly pit reduction of needs against surrender of independence. Thus on all sides it was necessary to right action, and held, as it were, the casting vote in the adjustments of nature to life. Control came to be regarded as more important than first momentum, and thus the very essence of personality and `nature' was found to lie in the dominion of reason. Gradually it usurped more than mere directive power, and claimed to decide the prior question of use. It might refuse assent to any line of movement and pass sentence of inertia on any impulse or emotion. At this point the reversal of original position has become complete. For the `nature' in which reason at first had no admitted place is now placed wholly at its mercy, and may be set aside as unauthorised, and in conflict with the mandates of the premier authority. Nature has become contrary to nature, and must therefore cease to be. Suppression of the emotions (apatheia) — a self-determination distinct from the imperturbability secured by disallowance of needs — takes a cardinal place in the Stoic scheme of life. And thus… the idea of personality — of the ultimate unity of the individual will and conscience, of an Ego distinct from physical organism and environment — eventually dawns upon Greek thought…» (74) and, even more importantly, reveals a deeper dualism new to `Greek' philosophy and, more generally, an antithesis previously unknown to Aryan peoples.
    >
    > Indeed, « Hitherto the emphasis on nature had been on the physical and sentient side of nature ; the inclusion of reason and the consequent social relationship changed the conception of the wise man and things indifferent. In the gradual clarification of the implications in pantheistic immanence and social fellowship, return to nature involved separation from the brutes and inert matter, and a recall from individual isolation to conscious brotherhood with human kind and harmony of will with God. As long as sense and impulse pronounced the verdict there could be only absolute rejection or acceptance. When reason became dominant, directing sense and impulse, a graduated scale of things indifferent as they aided or retarded life in agreement with reason resulted. The consequent suppression, or rather attempted annihilation, of the emotions made the nature from which reason had been excluded subservient. From the sovereignty of reason, personality as the ultimate unity of individual will and consciousness, distinct from the physical organism and environment was gradually revealed — with the final antithesis not between thought and sense, but between spirit and flesh, in later Stoicism. »

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