The Forgotten Whole: Earth and Its Phenomenal System of Support
Introduction:
In ancient Greek mythology and philosophy, there is a particular interest in Earth's and humanities' place within the existence of the cosmos. Hesiod gave a mythological account of Earth, writing on its stable sustainment and production of a world of objects and conscious beings. Earth, alongside Chaos, are the original foundations of the universe for Hesiod. However, there was a gradual transition away from a broader notion of Earth's primacy in the origination of life (even within Hesiod's writings as will be shown). For Anaximenes, and some other pre-Socratics (philosophers before Plato), there was a distinct attempt in philosophy to reduce phenomena to one or more elements. This contrasts a history where once nearly all oral explanations of origination had relied on entities and concepts bigger than people or their understanding. During the Socratic era, Plato attempts to reduce phenomena to a model (Plato's famous forms) and intellect. He tries to show it is by a rational mind and this model that the universe is formed. This essay aims to show this transition away from Earth as one that ignores a primitive and necessarily ambiguous system of perception. That is, a philosophy which claims mind and mechanized matter as a source of knowledge overlooks the surroundings which first allowed any type of philosophy (or any human endeavor) to be investigated.
This paper is in large part influenced by particular aspects of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Also, it is influenced by parts of David Abram's Spell of the Sensuous. While their works will be cited throughout this paper, it is not intended to merely repeat their views. It is to apply aspects of their philosophy, as well as personal ones, to ancient Greek mythology, and ancient Greek philosophy. Their views will also help illuminate both strengths and weaknesses within these Greek traditions.
Summary on some key views of Maurice Merleau-Ponty:
Much of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy was an opposition to ideologies that supported human intellect's access to a realm of rational laws or insights. This was not to eliminate the value of human thinking entirely, but to argue against holding human intellect as a singular source for knowledge. It can be seen, from Hesiod to Plato, a powerful part in which human intellect played as the source of rationality. Merleau-Ponty argues there is already perceptual awareness of a different kind before one focuses it to an intellectual definition. His ontology within the pages of Phenomenology of Perception offers his reasons for this conclusion. For Merleau-Ponty, neither sense experience nor intellect offer knowledgeable claims (31). He says, “Both take the objective world as the object of their analysis, when this comes first neither in time nor in virtue of its meaning; and both are incapable of expressing the peculiar way in which perceptual consciousness constitutes its object (31).” Before and underneath both sense and intellectual consciousness, is a phenomenal system which propels and allows the existence of conscious activity. “To be born is both to be born of the world and to be born into the world. The world is already constituted, but also never completely constituted; in the first case we are acted upon, in the second we are open to an infinite number of possibilities. But this analysis is still abstract, for we exist in both ways at once." First, there is a world by which a conscious body is born. This body is composed of the phenomenal system which allows its existence, but its essence is such as to be projected back at this world by being able to engage in it, in an infinite variety of ways. It’s not the specific identification of objects and their processes seen within the world that define or cause perception. Nor is it the identification of rational connections interpreting them. These are merely ways of perceiving phenomena, of which there are a plethora. Existing phenomena is the system which allows these various ways of seeing and interacting with the world. Phenomena as a whole definition however is fleeting. There is no reason to make one form of perception, the dominant. Another way of looking at is there is no reason for phenomena to hide a singular source of knowledge. So, since it provides knowledge in various ways, there is not access to a singular mode of consciousness that holds all of the answers.
For example, one may hear a scientist say that it is particular chemicals combining which allow the possibility of perception within an organism. However, for Merleau-Ponty this philosophy is void of life and sustainment in and of itself. Chemical analysis and experimentation depends on the system which allowed organisms to exist and practice it. Also, the existence of chemical reactions is only maintained in that it interacts with other modes of phenomena. Without other areas in which chemistry can integrate to form a purpose or reason (such as chemicals being used to address the concept of bodily health), its explanations fail to form any more merit than the activity of chemistry within itself. Thus, chemistry depends on a world which allows it. It interacts with this very same system by maintaining itself in the conscious subject's projection towards a possibility of varied interactions between the chemicals and the conceptual goals at hand (chemistry itself also being another concept). This suggests prior connectivity between the conscious body and world which is maintained at all phases of perception. Projects are born of this relationship between bodies and world; thus never completely separating the two. When a scientist says chemistry alone (this is not to suggest that it is not an avenue by which perception can be explained or maintained in part) leads to true understanding of perception or consciousness, he or she has attempted to sever their body's relationship to a system that is far more complex and varied than one empirical doctrine. Thinking of chemical explanations comes only after one is already aware of a holistic body and its world of opportunity. This system which allows particularized theories about knowledge seems to allow a plethora of forms. It is in that there is a multitude of interpretations that holding one as primary must be questioned. The scientific community accepts biological, chemical, and environmental (among others) descriptions of the field of genetics. Although there is much overlap between the three, there are distinctions in their account. The idea that they have to incorporate terms from each other and different scientific modes suggests their interconnection, and the lack of dominance in any particular mode. These different areas of phenomena are tied together to expose a world of genetics. This is a world that is connected to phenomena, but is only one among many. This suggests there is a choice in the normal human subject in how to look at the world. It is not one that is completely free however, in that it must build its task from the phenomenal content which brought it to being. However, the obvious variation within this content makes it impossible to deem one aspect of it as primary. These ideas derived from Merleau-Ponty will be applied to Hesiod, Anaximenes, and Plato.
Hesiod:
Hesiod's Theogeny is a poetic account of the origination of the gods; whom control what occurs on earth and in the cosmos (Evelyn-White). Thus, Hesiod attempted to present a genealogy. It is important to note, that Hesiod says to have learned the order of his genealogy by inspiration of the Muses. Muses were mythological goddesses who provoked Greek expression of myth in literature and art (Modern Greek). So, Hesiod ultimately appealed to a realm of divinity for explanation, as opposed to logical deduction or induction. He heard from the Muses, “In truth at first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy
Much of the Theogeny can be interpreted as containing traces of a primitive history, in which nomadic tribes' oral ideas were deeply imbedded. They (primitive oral ideas) were expressions for relating to, a diverse landscape steeped in wildlife. This was a landscape that was dominated by biological variation. Greek writing and contemplation on the other hand, was deeply embedded in a landscape dominated by human artifacts. Not only were Greek surroundings distinct from the natural world, but so was the emphasis on human identity and cognition. In nomadic times, people saw themselves as just another being within the landscape. They understood the cosmos did not offer them any superiority to other conscious beings and objects in their atmosphere. In this, they learned to sustain themselves by having relationships with the various aspects of phenomena, instead of dominating them and trying to understand them in entirety, and on human terms alone. Hesiod represented a person caught between this history of oral traditions in a natural landscape, and being a writer within one that is dominantly human. He viewed Earth and its relationships to other parts of the cosmos as critical to the sustainment of life. However, he went further by claiming to understand isolated reasons and regions of phenomena for this sustainment and relationship. First, some aspects of oral traditions before Hesiod will be considered. Then, it will be shown how Hesiod’s writing also offer distinctions that transition away from these oral traditions.
Primitive oral tribes necessarily practiced rationality in a very different way than Hesiod and almost all philosophical predecessors. Before an environment that was dominated in writing and human artifacts, were nomadic tribes who were deeply submerged in wildlife. It was within the natural environment that tribes developed intimate and effective ways with nature. Things like hunting, avoiding being hunted by animals or neighboring tribes, traveling, and many more activities were directly related to the active and changing features of a diverse biosphere. David Abram says, “Hunting, for an indigenous, oral community, entails abilities and sensibilities very different from those associated with hunting in technological civilization. Without guns or gun powder, a native hunter must often come much closer to his wild prey if he is to take its life (Abram 140).” A doctor from
Who among men and all creatures
Could live without the Sun Father?
For his light brings day, warms and
Gladdens the Earth Mother with rain, which flows forth the water we drink.
And that causes the flesh of the
Earth Mother to yield seeds abundantly (Padilla 31).
There are two aspects that can be seen here. First, a characterization, or a deifying of natural objects. Secondly, that these objects sustain human life. The reason for characterizing something such as the Sun is not to deem it a singular “God,” or to deem it the principle law of nature. It is to set it up as something that relates to the changes and events in an environment. The sun had its own traits which sustained the Earth, like a father may sustain a family. This shows people saw natural objects as able to relate to humanity and the environment in different ways. Over time, just like a person's developing relationship with another person, various objects of perception and their relation to the natural world were revealed. It was allowing the landscape to have its varied forms of language and communication that allowed indigenous tribes to survive inside of wildlife, without dominating it.
The problem at hand is indeed how the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and indigenous tribes' relationship with the Earthly environment relates to the Greek mythological and philosophical traditions. As shown, Hesiod called upon personification (this is distinct from the characterization seen in oral tribes) of phenomena to bring about the layers of Earth; and the existence of its objects and conscious subjects. One can see the hangover, of a characterized landscape. However, with Hesiod, it is not varied character residing within objects of the natural landscape. His personification is due to the Muses, entities apart from the environmental context of variety as a whole. Hesiod held the Muses as a source of knowledge by which only supernatural experience or insight can hear their words. This stretch shows a departure from the varied environment. It was a transition to the isolated personification of deities by human standards alone. Indeed, it would seem to a human, that he or she contains far more spontaneity than something like the sun. So instead of attempting to relate a phenomenal system of sustainment to conscious bodies and their world, Hesiod attempted to relate human characteristics to phenomena. Phenomena therefore became dependent on human characteristics. Before, human knowledge was based on many layers of the cosmos and their interconnection.
It was a drastic change on Hesiod's part to draw deity apart from the world which sustained his theories. There is no content for the Muses themselves to be experienced. Thus, Hesiod claimed to have insight into something beyond, or apart from the system which allowed his thinking and writing in the first place. During Hesiod's time there were indeed new ways in which humans were engaging with the world. Cities had been established which were dominated by human objects. Also, writing had been established. Unfortunately, for some thinkers (like Hesiod) this brought about an unnatural conclusion that leaves behind the rest of the living world and its various phenomena. Hesiod believed his inspiration to be separate from the phenomenal horizons which contained him, and therefore he developed a philosophy in a strictly human realm. This allowed him to make supernatural claims which have no premises within the world, but only in one tiny area of phenomena, Hesiod's head. His writings did however allow people to contemplate the world in new forms. Human spontaneity was beginning to take a different form. Because of both writing, and cities which dominated natural landscape, people could now isolate themselves more from the natural environment. While this ability is not wrong, claiming it as the source of the phenomena which brought it about creates a clear and endless circle.
It would contradict the theories being promoted to claim the experienced and defined environment as the source of perception. So, it should be argued that one does not have access to the source of perception as a whole, but only part of it that can interact with other parts of it. Therefore, breaking off from the natural environment, is ignoring other dimensions of perception, and the overall universe which allows these dimensions. This is done by placing knowledge solely within a human domain. Hesiod's philosophy can only relate to the language of humans, and cannot relate to the motions of a world containing much more than humanity. Living and understanding by relating to various languages of perception began to lose its honest grasp, as writers like Hesiod claimed definitive inspiration apart from much of the phenomena which allowed existence.
Anaximenes:
After Hesiod, in the pre-Socratic tradition one can see a transition back to the natural object as playing a significant part in defining perception. The idea that human mind has definitive access to the source of knowledge and life however, is maintained in many of the pre-Socratics. Anaximenes offered a principle element and mechanism as the source of the cosmos. “Anaximenes... like Anaximander, declares that the underlying nature is one and boundless, but not indeterminate as Anaximander held, but definite, saying that it is air. It differs in rarity and density according to the substances [ it becomes ]. Becoming finer it comes to be fire; being condensed it comes to be wind... (Reeve and Miller 3).” Principality went back into the environment, in that Anaximenes' primary element was air. There was also a primary force that causes changes within existence. However, defining the source of the cosmos as something so specific again is simply engaging in a narrow and incomplete aspect of human cognition. Anaximenes claimed to be attentive to the correct primary element, and also judged that he had seen this element in a true form of perception. On page 35 of Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty says: “It is precisely by overthrowing data that the act of attention is related to previous acts, and the unity of consciousness is thus built up step by step through a 'transition-synthesis'.” Anaximenes merely set aside the other elements and placed his mind on air. It is not that air doesn't exist, or have a part in perception. It is that there is no proven reason to claim it as the principle element. Furthermore, Anaximenes not only made superstitious value claims in regards to air, but also his own mind. He trusted that his perception of air and its unfolding elements were the universally correct reasoning. He applied what is a particular experience within a limited horizon, as something complete and universal.
On a more positive note, Anaximenes did uncover a new way of perceiving phenomena that maintains effect through today. He broke the world down into elements that could change forms based on certain forces. This can be seen as part of the beginnings of science. Science currently devotes much of its emphasis to the periodic elements and what occurs when they are combined with each other, different forces, and environments. It in turn applies these combinations to medicine and technology among many other fields. Again, science is only possible because of the perceptual system which allows it. Also, science goes back into the system itself by combining with other parts of perception. An example is when chemicals are used to meet sociological (such as health) or ecological concerns. Their usefulness and existence is brought about by areas of life beyond itself. So, Anaximenes offered an idea of breaking the world into these elements. However, having believed that these elements explained the entire cosmos leaves his theory to only relate to itself, and not the complexity that allowed its existence and applications.
Plato:
Plato (whose real name was Aristocles) tried to resolve a couple of problems within philosophies such as those proposed by Anaximenes. Whereas Anaximenes had a principle element, Plato allowed for a plurality of forms. So for Plato, something exists because there is a form in which it may participate. Plato discussed many different forms in his famous dialects. When discussing the form of virtue in the Meno, he says, “It is the same with virtues. Even if they are many and multifarious, surely they all have one identical form because of which they are all virtues (Reeve and Miller 88-72c).” So the idea is there is already content present in an action or object, which allows one to match intellectual definitions to them. In 29a of the Timaeus, Plato explained his theory regarding the origination of the world in which hums experience these forms. He believed that an intelligent maker has used a model deemed “The Living Thing.” The intelligent maker seems to allow the collection of forms to become a matrix, in which various combinations equate to the expressions of forms in the sensible universe (Reeve and Miller 239). This sets up Plato's argument for the source of reality as one that is solely intellectual. That is, he proposed the source of the universe as something he can only derive with his mind. To further support this, he said in the Phaedo, “When then, he asked, does the soul grasp the truth? For whenever it attempts to examine anything with the body, it is clearly deceived by it... Is it not in reasoning if anywhere that any reality become clear to the soul? (Reeve and Miller 111-65c).” Plato attempted to set up a philosophy based on the investigations of human mind alone.
When Plato tried to show the form Virtue allows virtuous actions, he was merely being attentive to a narrow aspect of manifesting phenomena. For virtuous action to be present, it requires a more complex recipe than one form of phenomena (even then virtue seems to be a highly subjective idea to address). First, there has to be system of phenomena which allows for one to even build or contemplate an idea of virtue. There needs to be a subject who relates to an atmosphere of various phenomena in which he or she can isolate virtue. And then, only aspects of this system can be seen and judged at a time. “Attention is therefore a general and unconditioned power in the sense that at any moment it can be applied indifferently to any content of consciousness. Being everywhere barren, nowhere can it have its own purposes to fulfill (Merleau-Ponty 31).” Plato believes that because he has been attentive to various actions of virtue, that he now has knowledge of its form. However, he only applied a part of the process of cognition in his derivations. He took his ability to cancel out other perceptual content and interact with virtue, and concluded this was a form of knowledge. This is not to say Plato did not engage with what he felt was the phenomenon of virtue. It is to say that he cannot form a complete definition of what virtue is by default of an already ambiguous perceptual system. Setting up a form virtue as something that causes virtuous actions falls into logical incoherency. Without conscious bodies, and an environment of varied possibilities of action, there is nothing for one to separate out virtue from non-virtue. If one judges a particular action as virtuous, it is only because the experience of it matches up with his or her body when chosen in preference to other actions or perceptual projects. Like Hesiod, and Anaximenes, Plato believed that his mind had access to the realm of truth apart from everything else in the phenomenal world.
Conclusion:
Before the written word and world of human artifacts, humanity survived within a more varied and primitive landscape. Humans maintained life by characterizing the varied wildlife, and learning various patterns and ways to relate to them. By the time of Greek mythology, phenomena was also expressing itself by conscious subjects steeped in civilization. Thinkers such as Hesiod, Anaximenes, and Plato misinterpreted this ability to live within broader phenomena as an isolated group of humans, as meaning humans have special access to the answers of the universe. However, there is no such access. “Now the phenomenal field as we have revealed it...places a fundamental difficulty in the way of any attempt to make experience directly and totally explicit (Merleau-Ponty 70).” Perceptual content in its totality is not brought about by forms, minds, rational rules, or particular elements. These descriptions of perception are “the universal focus of knowledge... (Merleau-Ponty 69).” This means, it is by arriving at points of any kind of perceptual analysis or focus which the universe itself exists through our bodies’ cognition of it. However, consciousness does not see the entire universe which brings it about. It can only interact with narrow perceptual zones of it at a time. This leads one to see consciousness in general, is essential to existence of any sort. Because if there are no conscious bodies, there is no defining or experiencing the phenomena which manifests itself in any way, shape, or form. The various ways of seeing and interacting with phenomena show it as existing in a general sense, but not definable in totality. Consciousness exists only by a subjective horizon, and the tasks within it. Specific individual bodies or activities (both subjective and objective) of consciousness are not essential to the existence or understanding of a universe (though general ones are necessary). They are merely ways in which the phenomena of existence lives.
Works Cited
Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World.
New York: Vintage, 1996. Print.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge, 2008. Print.
^ Modern Greek οι μούσες, i moúses.
Padilla, Stan. Chants and Prayers. Summertown, TN: Book Pub., 1995. Print.
Reeve, C.D.C., and Patrick L. Miller. Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy.
Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 2006. Print.
