Pre-Socratic Philosophy, The Numinous Way, Aesthetics,
and Other Questions
In From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way you described philosophy as “founded upon abstractions”. Yet, in the same work, you called your Numinous Way the new philosophy of pathei-mathos. Isn’t there a contradiction here, for aren’t you saying or implying, by calling the Numinous Way a philosophy, that it too is based on abstractions, and aren’t abstractions, according to the Numinous Way, wrong?
Personally, I do not believe there is a contradiction, although perhaps I did not express myself as well as I should have. In respect of abstractions, I was referring to conventional philosophy – a term I used several times in the essay you mentioned. By which conventional philosophy I mean the reliance on ideation – on the process of trying to find, and giving names and terms to, certain causes and then analysing being, beings, and “things”, including ourselves, in relation to what has been posited and given some abstract form.
This is, primarily, the tradition of Western philosophy from Plato until quite recently – arising from the errors of εἶδος and ἰδέα. Prior to this, is what has been perhaps incorrectly termed Pre-Socratic philosophy, and after this tradition are philosophers such as Nietzsche and Heidegger, although of course this itself is something of an inaccurate generalization, based as it is on a limited causal apprehension where some sort of linear progression, or some causal dialectical process, is assumed. But, while inaccurate, it may nevertheless be helpful in some way, for example in placing Heidegger, and others, into some kind of perspective.
For me, philosophy is what the word itself imputes - φίλος, a friend, of σοφόν; one for whom knowledge, understanding, and thence wisdom, are important. [1]
In the essay you refer to, I contrasted experimental science with conventional philosophy, although I could have used the older, and possibly more apt, term Natural Philosophy instead of experimental science. Thus, for me, The Numinous Way is indeed philosophy – although not of the conventional kind; a particular view, or explanation of, the Cosmos (Being, Reality) and how beings, “things”, what we apprehend through experimental science and otherwise, relate thereto.
If we return to the limited causal apprehension, the conventional and assumed and rather erroneous concept of the linear progression of knowledge, then one might categorize this new philosophy as having some similarity with the Pre-Socratics, which is one reason why in both From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way and Numinous Culture, The Acausal, and Living Traditions I quoted Heraclitus, and saught, for the benefit of others, to reference some of the fundamentals of The Numinous Way with certain Greek terms, such as ὕβρις, Φύσις and λόγος.
Thus, one might write and say that the foundation of The Numinous Way – of the philosophy of pathei-mathos – lies in the insights of people – Greeks – such as Heraclitus, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. Or, if one is being pedantic, one would correctly write and say that certain insights, intuitions, and reasoning, of such individuals are, or were, similar to, but not necessarily identical with, some of my own insights, intuitions, and reasoning.
But those two essays were just an attempt to provide, for The Numinous Way, some general philosophical reference points – a rather academic philosophical framework – for those who might be interested and who might find such a conventional framework useful in understanding The Numinous Way.
In From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way, you defined abstraction as the implementation, the practical application, of ὕβρις. Can you expand upon this?
The genesis of abstractionism is ὕβρις – that is, the concentration on the causal, on cause-and effect, on one’s desires/feelings in isolation. This obscures, undermines, the natural balance.
A classic example is Oedipus, as described by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus. In his singular desire to find the killer of Laius, Oedipus oversteps the due limits, and upsets the natural balance both within, and external to, himself. He is blinded by mere causality (a linear thinking) and personal feelings – by his overwhelming desire for a simple cause-and-effect solution to the plague and his prideful belief that he, a mortal and master of the riddle of the Sphinx, can find or derive a solution.
The same thing also occurs to Creon, as described by Sophocles in his Antigone. Creon’s pride and stubbornness, and his rigid adherence to his own, causal, mortal, edict – which overturns the natural edict of the gods designed to give and maintain balance, harmony – leads to tragedy, to suffering.
The same thing occurred to Odysseus, who for all his mortal cunning could not contrive to return to his homeland as he wished, and
kπολλὰ δ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,
ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.
ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὣς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, ἱέμενός περ:
αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο,
νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο
ἤσθιον: αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.
“…whose vigour, at sea, was weakened by many afflictions
As he strove to win life for himself and return his comrades to their homes.
But not even he, for all this yearning, could save those comrades
For they were destroyed by their own immature foolishness
Having devoured the cattle of Helios, that son of Hyperion,
Who plucked from them the day of their returning. “
In conventional philosophy, concentration on mere causality – linear thinking – led to and leads to abstractions, to the covering-up of Φύσις and λόγος, and τὸ καλόν. This emphasis on causality, on ideation, on assigning being and “things” to some abstraction, is the error of mortal pride, of hubris, arising from a lack of or an ignorance of empathy; from ignoring the gods, or, expressed un-theistically, from ignoring that supra-causal perspective (that dimension) which The Numinous Way reveals as the acausal and as the acausal manifesting, being presenced, in the causal by the numinous.
Since you have stated many times that empathy is the fundamental basis of The Numinous Way, how does this fit-in with you linking – as you did in Numinous Culture, The Acausal, and Living Traditions – empathy with λόγος? For isn’t this λόγος just part of something else?
Empathy is indeed the essence of The Numinous Way, and is a type of knowing, a means of apprehending Being and beings, and as I mentioned in An Overview of The Numinous Way of Life and elsewhere, empathy makes us aware of the numinous, and that:
” What is of particular importance about empathy is that it is only and ever personal. That is, empathy – like the numinous – only lives and thrives within an individual living being; it cannot be abstracted out of a living, individual, being.”
That is, empathy does not rely on nor need abstractions, or any ideation – and is never impersonal, and importantly provides us with a knowing of what is beyond both the linearity of causal Time and abstractions. Part of this knowing is how we, as individual, living, beings are a connexion to all Life; not separate from such Life.
Φύσις is, in a most important and quite fundamental way, manifest to us in that natural unfolding, that living being that is Nature, imbued as Nature is, as all living beings are, with ψυχή.
λόγος is manifest to us in both empathy and reason, with reason being both what has been termed logical reasoning (logic) and also empathy as ἁρμονίη, as that letting-be (wu-wei), that natural balance presenced within us, which uncovers what has been hidden by ideation, by abstractions. Thus, λόγος is how we can understand, come to know, Φύσις – and which understanding and knowing leads us to Αἰὼν, to an appreciation and understanding of the acausal, of acausal Time, beyond all causal abstractions.
When you write about the numinous, are you referring to Aesthetics – and if so, do you have a theory of aesthetics, and what part, if any, does empathy play in this?
What is Art? Technically, and correctly, Art, for The Numinous Way, is a nexion – a connexion between the causal and the acausal; a causal embodiment of some-thing acausal. What is embodied, and becomes a work of Art, is the numinous and some aspect of acausality, and empathy is one means for a human being to embody, to know, the numinous and acausality. By embody is meant to presence (acausality) in the causal.
Since empathy is only and ever personal, it logically follows that what might be called aesthetic judgement is personal as well, and that there cannot be any abstract, or formal, criteria or theory to judge or to reference what is often termed aesthetic value, beyond the obvious ones of numinosity and acausality. It is this combination of numinosity and acausality presenced in a particular causal manner that may be said to distinguish Art.
More prosaically, and less technically, Art is that works or those works, and/or that activity, that not only represents or expresses (or tries to express) in some way (gives some manufactured/created physical practical form or a collocation of forms to) the numinous, but which also has or presents to us (that is, presences in our causal, phenomenal world) some aspect of acausality.
Art can thereby be some conventional static formful and human-manufactured thing – such as a painting, a poem, a piece of music; or it can be a collocation of human-manufactured forms, such as a film, where images, moving and static, are combined with music and words and express a narrative or a story. By static is meant given a containing or limiting causal form or structure – for example, a conventional musical composition has a beginning and an end, and is scored to be played by some particular instrument or instruments and/or by the human voice (and so on), and is therefore possessed of a particular causal structure, and represents a particular causal presencing, and one which can thus be “faithfully interpreted/performed” according to what are considered to be the wishes of the composer, or given some new “interpretation” in the manner that, for example, the plays of Shakespeare often are, by some human being.
But Art can also, importantly, be some-thing living, changing, and not manufactured or directly presenced by us; that is, Art, a work of Art, can be the life, or some aspect of the life of, a human being, or some aspect of Nature that lives, that is presenced or becomes presenced to us, in a specific moment or moments of causal Time in a particular causal location (causal Space).
Thus, we might justifiably ask: what, and technically, is numinous? And what, technically, is acausality?
Technically, the numinous is what predisposes us not to commit ὕβρις – that is, what continues or maintains or manifests ἁρμονίη and thus καλλός; the natural balance – sans abstractions – that enables us to know and appreciate, and which uncovers, Φύσις and λόγος, and τὸ καλόν, the virtuous beauty known to us mortals as personal honour [2].
What is numinous is a presencing of acausal energy, in the causal – or ψυχή unfolding in the causal – and this is evident to us in what is beautiful (καλός), and what is imbued with the sublime, that is, with an appreciation of beyond-the-causal and thus beyond our own mortal lives: part of which, and anciently, would have been called the gods, or God, and/or to which we might assign the term Nature, as a living, changing, being, the matrix of Life, working on our planet, Earth, in a specific way and manifest in a diversity of living species.
Beauty – καλλός – is thus what or that which presences, embodies, or manifests, ἁρμονίη.
Technically, acausality [3] is that aspect of the Cosmos, of Reality, evident in acausal being – which we can apprehend in terms of an acausal Space and an acausal Time (an acausal continuum), as opposed to causal being, apprehended by us in terms of a causal Space and a causal Time (a causal continuum), with this causal continuum being the phenomenal world we know and experience by means of our physical senses.
in conclusion, it is worth repeating what I mentioned earlier, which is that all these references to Greek terms are just general, common, philosophical reference points – a somewhat academic philosophical framework for aspects of The Numinous Way – provided for those who might be interested and who might find such a conventional framework useful in understanding The Numinous Way, and possibly relating it to other philosophies.
David Myatt
2455335.917
Notes:
[1] In general, σοφός is to have, to possess, a certain skill, a certain craft: the craft of being able to distinguish between τὸ καλόν and φρόνημα; between what manifests the numen and what manifests barbarity, pride; between what predisposes us to act nobly, with honour, and what can cause us to commit ὕβρις. [ For φρόνημα cf. Euripides, Heraclid. 926: μήποτ᾽ ἐμοὶ φρόνημα ψυχά τ᾽ ἀκόρεστος εἴη ]
Thus, we can conceive of wisdom being a knowing of, a discovery of, what is necessary for ἁρμονίη – a knowing and appreciation, of, and what uncovers, Φύσις and λόγος, and τὸ καλόν.
[2] Personal honour – manifest in a Code of Honour – is a practical means of maintaining balance within the individual; a means whereby ὕβρις may be avoided. Thus the importance, in The Numinous Way, of both empathy and personal honour – refer, for instance, to An Overview of The Numinous Way of Life.
[3] See, for instance, Life and The Nature of the Acausal.
