Reality

From Metaphysics to Metapolitics

Wynand De Beer

• Éditeur: Resource Publications
• Année: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532686474
• Sujet: Philosophy
• Sous-sujet: Philosophy of Religion

What is reality? Most people in the modern world are ignorant of metaphysical realities, not to mention the prevalence of semantic confusion, and therefore Wynand de Beer aims to counter this ignorance and confusion. He employs numerous insights from classical Greek philosophy and traditional Christian theology in order to discuss the various levels of reality, ranging from the highest (the divine) to the lowest (the material). The author then deals with a range of philosophical and theological themes in the light of the preceding discussion. These include well-being and love, time and eternity, good and evil, truth and knowledge, and the survival of the soul beyond bodily death, which is the only kind of immortality that human beings may attain. A lengthy chapter also deals with the manifestation of higher levels of consciousness in religion, mathematics, and music. In the later chapters of the book, the author subjects salient aspects of the Western sociocultural phenomenon known as "political correctness" to critical scrutiny. In the process, these ideologically driven and media-promoted "isms" are contrasted with both Hellenic and Christian thought, and the penetrating writings of traditionalist and/or anti-modernist thinkers from different parts of the world.

Aristocracy and Democracy

The term ‘politics’ is derived from the Greek noun polis, meaning city-state. In the Hellenic understanding, politics is a collective striving to establish a community whose existential purpose (telos) is not limited to the management of needs (as is the case in most of the modern world), but is rather an attempt to live in harmony with the principle of truth. In other words, Nicolas Laos writes, “the telos of politics is to help humanity to exist authentically through and within a social system.”442 Moreover, since true being (i.e., the way of eternity and immortality) depends on participation in the logos, if a human being seeks to be immortal he or she should imitate the logos by organizing society “as an event of participation in the order, harmony, and decency of the relations that constitute the eternal cosmic beauty. This is the essence of politics and the way of the ancient Greek polis.”443 According to this reasoning, the practice of politics may not be divorced from the notions of truth, order, harmony, and beauty.

In much of the modern world it is commonly accepted that a democratic government is always and everywhere preferable to an aristocratic one. Before assessing the validity of this assumption, let us consider the etymology of these terms. ‘Aristocracy’ is derived from the Greek aristos, which means best, and kratein, which means to rule. ‘Democracy’ is derived from dēmos, which means the common people, and kratein.444 Therefore, in the literal sense of the words, aristocracy means rule by the best, while democracy means rule by the common people—or, less flatteringly, rule by the mob (in Greek, hoi polloi, ‘the many’). In the memorable words of Oscar Wilde: “Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”445 It has also been remarked that the mob is the stratum of a population which is totally incapable of cultural attainment; it is therefore referred to as profanum vulgus in Latin, meaning the common masses or herd.446

Plato’s Political Philosophy

The first Hellenic thinker to undertake a systematic investigation into various forms of government was Plato, who thereby became the founder of political philosophy in the Western world. This has been achieved mainly through his dialogue Politeia (usually translated as Republic), which is subtitled ‘On Justice.’ In this work, Plato analyzes a variety of governmental forms in terms of their contribution to justice or their deviation therefrom. Employing his mentor Socrates as primary speaker, Plato first outlines the ideal state, which is an aristocracy ruled by philosophers who had received lengthy and rigorous training, enabling them to rule with wisdom and justice. He then proceeds to describe four types of imperfect society, namely timarchy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny.

Before considering Plato’s teaching on the ideal state, we should note his view of justice (dikaiosynē) in the state and the individual. The four main qualities of the state are wisdom, courage, self-discipline, and justice (Pol, 427e). As Desmond Lee comments in his translation of this seminal dialogue, this is the first appearance in Hellenic literature of the four cardinal virtues.447 The correlation between state and individual is then affirmed by Socrates: “We are bound to admit that the elements and traits that belong to a state must also exist in the individuals that compose it” (Pol, 435e). Therefore, justice in the individual corresponds with justice in the state: he is wise and brave due to his reason and spiritedness, respectively; he is disciplined to the extent that spiritedness and appetite are subordinated to reason; he is just on account of the harmony which exists when all the elements perform their proper function; and he is unjust in the absence of such harmony (Pol, 441c–d).448 Thus, for Plato, “the cosmic, civic, and individual orders are naturally governed by one and the same law of justice; and among the accepted senses of ‘just’ is that of ‘civilized.’”449

However, that justice in the Platonic conception has nothing to do with equality has been affirmed by the Christian Neoplatonist thinker Dionysius the Areopagite. In the Divine Names he writes that “the divine righteousness in this is really true righteousness, because it assigns to all things what is proper according to the rank of each of the beings, and preserves the nature of each in its proper order and power” (DN, VIII.7). As Eric Perl comments: “Justice, properly understood, means not equality but due proportion, a place for everything and everything in its place.”450 Clearly, this balanced view of justice is worlds removed from the modern Western obsession with ‘equality,’ so much so that in a country such as Britain there is actually an Equality Act, of which the provisions are enforced by the judicial system. In practice, this means submission to the irrational dictates of so-called political correctness.

Plato’s view of the just relation between the state and the individual has been summarized as follows. For the individual, justice as highest virtue exists primarily in the harmony among the different components of the soul, so that all are brought under the rule of reason. Likewise, for the state, justice as supreme virtue exists in the harmonic whole among the different classes comprising the state. The guarantor of justice in the state is the philosopher-ruler, whose knowledge of the Ideas is realized in his or her own life and in the guidance of the state. Eminent among the Ideas is the Idea of the Good, which manifests in the loyalty, the good morals, and the binding traditions according to which the guardians and the workers live. And as far as the later concept of rights and freedom of the individual are concerned, we could say that it lies in the latter’s rightful place in the state as determined by his or her abilities. In this harmonic schema, the goodness of the state and the goodness of the individual goes hand in hand.451

The Three Classes

In the Politeia, Plato distinguishes between three classes of citizens in the state, (broadly speaking) corresponding to the three levels of the soul: the reason, the higher emotions, and the appetites. The highest class in the state are the rulers (archontes), whose power is absolute. Their primary virtue is wisdom (sophia), by means of which the state must be guided and formed. The second class are the auxiliaries (phylakes), whose duty is to defend the state. Their virtues are courage, bravery, and manliness (andreia). The lowest class are the workers (demiourgoi), which include all who are neither rulers nor auxiliaries, for example, farmers, artisans, traders, teachers, and artists. Self-control and moderation (sōphrosyne) are virtues of the workers. However, it should be kept in mind that Plato does not limit any of the mentioned virtues to one class.452

Plato’s division of society closely follows the traditional Indo-European concept of three social functions, namely priests, warriors, and cultivators. In addition to the guardians (i.e., rulers and auxiliaries), Plato actually mentions a variety of socio-economic functions: producers, merchants, sailors, retail traders, and manual laborers.453 The latter are described as those who have no great mental powers to contribute, but whose physical strength makes them suitable for manual labor for which they are paid wages (Pol, 371e). These manual laborers are the ‘wage-slaves’ of an industrial society and the equivalent of the Indian class of Shudras, the fourth level in the hierarchy of castes.454

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Table des matières

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Abbreviations
• The Indo-European Background
• Being and Non-being
• Metaphysical and Physical
• Mind and Motion
• Intellect and Necessity
• Soul and Matter
• Levels of Being
• Well-being and Love
• Good and Evil
• Truth and Knowledge
• Time and Eternity
• Death and Immortality
• Consciousness
• Man and Woman
• Aristocracy and Democracy
• Freedom and Liberalism
• Bibliography