1. Truth, Belief and Insight: Kant, Plato and Lucretius

“…are we not at liberty, where we cannot make assertions, at least to invent theories and to have opinions?”––Kant

Kant was posing this question in 1781 as he moved God, morality, freedom and the fallen science of metaphysics out of the sphere of a priori thought and into the domain of practical reason. While he was able to vindicate the scientific status of mathematics and physics by demonstrating their capability of pure synthetic judgement within his a priori forms of intuition––space and time (mathematics)––and by way of the principles of pure understanding which were derived from his twelve categories of the understanding (physics)––, Kant could find no such vindication for metaphysics. He came to the conclusion that pure reason was incapable of making the kinds of absolute a priori judgements required by metaphysics as they extended beyond the realm of experience and therefore beyond the limits of human understanding. For Kant, a priori synthetic judgements are only possible in so far as experience necessarily presupposes them; experience itself is made possible by a framework (the principles of pure understanding) which presupposes the very nature of it’s reception into consciousness (ie. causation). Thus, in Kantian terms, pure reason errs when it claims to prove (or disprove) the existence of God and the freedom of the will or to present the nature of the soul and morality in ultimate terms. Of course Kant does not simply do away with God, freedom, and morality but rather places them in the context of practical reason. Here they are not presented as objets of knowledge––as they were in metaphysics––but rather as modes feeling and contemplation which give us practical insight into our moral and spiritual nature as well as our idea of freedom. As he reintroduces into the practical sphere what was lost in the denunciation of metaphysics as a science, Kant offers a categorical imperative which structures moral vales rationally; he allows for, and makes the distinction between pure understanding and a rational method of belief.

In 4th century B.C.E. Athens, Plato was wrestling with epistemic and moral problems that were very similar to those which confronted Kant late in the 18th century. Like Kant, he offered his own distinction between the faculties of reason: whereas Kant divided the faculties of reason in to three basic categories––pure reason and practical reason are mediated by judgement––, Plato’s model consisted of two, true knowledge and true opinion. For Plato true knowledge can only be derived from mathematical certainty; the closest approximation to this is true opinion which involves a set of judgements and speculation based in true knowledge. This allowed Plato to distinguish between the knowable and the speculative––there is a general similarity between the Kantian faculties of pure and practical reason and the Platonic categories of true knowledge and true opinion. Plato, however, views true knowledge as having nothing to do with experience and does not distinguish between the theological and the scientific as belonging to different faculties of understanding; indeed the term scientific as we understand it to day does not apply to Plato. He sees true knowledge as being attainable only by pure mathematical thought; there is a distinct hierarchical separation between physical experience and the perfect reality whence true knowledge comes via mathematics.

In this way the Platonic conception of mathematics does not––as it does with Kant––necissarily presuppose fundamental forms of experiential intuition (spacial extension and time); it comes to us instead from the stars to teach us divine order (geometry). Thus while Plato and Kant would certainly agree on the ability of mathematics to render synthetic a priori judgements, they would likely disagree on the nature and providence of mathematical thought. And they would certainly disagree on where the ultimate value of mathematical understanding was to rest––Kant on the side of science and Plato on the side of morality. Additionally, as the loci of their thought leads them in such different directions, Plato and Kant would be hard pressed to agree on the epistemological value of a physics based in empirical observation of nature: Kant recognises the epistemological value of physics as natural science; Plato can find no moral weight in natural science and rejects it as essentially useless to mankind.

Thus Plato rejects the Ionian thought of his day as morally corrupting when its physics reduce existence to the meaningless movements of atoms in space and when it founds it’s knowledge on empirical observations and intuitive insights that lack moral and ideological substance. He also rejects sophistic rhetorical argument as being devoid of the kind of teleological locus that gives Socratic dialogue the ability to achieve true opinion. We find in his Timaeus an account of nature that is as teleological as it is theological; Plato is less concerned with making an account of nature as we find it and is more interested in explaining God’s ways to man. He offers a “likely account” (true opinion) of the nature and meaning of the universe to his interlocutors which is meant to give spiritual a spiritual dimension to the moral and political themes raised in Plato’s Republic. Plato can lay claim to true opinion with regards to the claims made in the Timaeus because he bases his account of the universe in true knowledge (geometry). He builds up a mythical argument founded on the immutable celestial movement provided by the heavenly spheres and the perfection of the triangle as the divine form on which all matter is based (true knowledge). The Timaeus is Plato’s grand hymn to the universe.

The Platonic universe is created by a divine Craftsman (Demiurge) who is rational and beneficent and who bases his creation on a perfect eternal model. By imposing mathematical order onto chaos for the good of all, the Craftsman constructs the world to be as perfect as nature permits; the beauty of the universe is the model for rational souls to emulate. Plato posits a distinction between what always is and never becomes and what becomes and never is: the former is grasped by understanding and the latter by opinion––true knowledge and true opinion at work. The metaphysical being/becoming distinction establishes the framework for the entire Platonic cosmology, including the persuasive effects of Intellect on Necessity. Intellect pushes Necessity to approach perfection but resistance by Necessity limits the degree of perfection the created world can attain. Interestingly, it seems as though the Platonic Intellect itself cannot be placed either on the side of being or on that of becoming––on the side of knowledge or opinion. For Plato Intellect is a substance that transcends the metaphysical dichotomy of being and becoming, possibly not unlike the Judaeo-Christian conception of God. The conclusion is that the universe is a work of craft, produced by a beneficent Craftsman in imitation of a perfect eternal model; it is through realigning the motions of our souls with those of the universe at large that we achieve our goal of living virtuously and happily.

Lucretian materialism presented in On the Nature of the Universe offers a very different view on the meaning and requrirement of the happy, good or tranquil life. Writing in the first century B.C.E, Lucretius bases his understanding of the physical world––which includes the human soul, freewill, desire and all other aspects of human life––on insight arrived at through the analysis of analogous structures derived from obsevations of natural phenomena (horses out of the gate: atomic swerve; sheep on a hillside:distance/perspective). He dismisses religious and mythical modes of thought that characterise the work of Plato as misleading and proposes a universe founded on the concept of the atom and void. As his thought is based on the Ionian tradition––his physics and ontology is derived from Epicurus––he has no need of God or Gods as they pertain to the life of mankind. For Lucretius, all phenomena are results of atomic action/combination; nothing is born or disappears in to nothing, void and material (body) are fundamental – all else is a product of this and inseparable from it – time and historical facts, are argued to be in fact existentially parasitic on the presently existing world, and thus not independently existing. He postulates a minimal indeterminacy in the activity of atoms to account for free will (swerve, clinamen)––this is antecedent to quantum uncertainty––and describes the universe as infinite: great numbers of other worlds exist and worlds come and go like ours has and will. This, of course, is a damaging view for religion. Lucretius does offer an account of a mortal soul which exists in two parts: spirit (anima) exists throughout the body, mind (animus) is located in the chest. Both are corporeal and are created by a special blend of atoms including a special fine atom unique to soul which allows it’s movement and sensitivity––brain, nervous system and vital spirit. For Lucretius, our conscious selves cannot transcend death and once the body dies, the atoms of the body and soul disperse. To fear a future state of death, is to make the conceptual blunder of supposing yourself present to regret your own non-existence. The reality is that being dead will be no worse (just as it will be no better) than it was, long ago, not yet to have been born.

Lucretius works through a range of the phenomena that physical theorists were standardly called upon to account for: storms, waterspouts, earthquakes, plagues and the like. Exclusion of divine causation undoubtedly motivates the his account, the phenomena in question being nearly all ones popularly regarded as manifestations of divine intervention. Lucretius not only explains them naturalistically, but is ready to mock the rival, theological explanations. For example: if thunderbolts are weapons hurled by Zeus at human miscreants, why does he waste so much of his ammunition on uninhabited regions or sometimes strike his own temple. He also discusses the emergence of life and precedes Darwin and others in postulating natural selection to offer a non teleological account of natural design. He goes on to discuss language, love, civilisation and cultural constructions such as friendship and justice, religion– civilisation has advanced because of man’s desire to better his lot, but to no avail, because every advance eliminates one source of grief only to replace it with another.

Although Lucretius presents the mythical characters of Venus and Mars locked in an eternal dialectic struggle between creative (pleasure) and destructive (pain)––this, the poetic form of his discourse is the “honey on the rim of the cup”, is to help the medicine go down––in all other respects he is consistent with the maxims of the Epicurean tetrapharmakos: ‘God holds no fears, death no worries; good is easily attainable, evil easily endurable.’ In contrast with the moral and scientific concerns of Kant and Plato, the locus of Lucretian reasoning lies in the understanding of desire: identification of the irrational fears which create and are maintained by religion and discerning real needs and pleasures from those created out of neurosis and greed––one leads to pleasure and tranquility (Venus) the other to pain (Mars). Thus Lucretius advocates the Epicurean life of detached tranquillity, portrayed as maintaining modest and easily satisfied appetites while shunning lofty ambitions; the implication being perhaps––and this is not explicitly stated––, that if everyone adopted this mode of being mankind could avoid many of the discontents that plague him.

We have three very different views on the nature and limits of understanding, morality and what it means to lead a good life. Kant draws the distinction between knowledge and belief (moral obligation). On one hand he presents the faculty of pure reason which allows for synthetic a priori judgements, such as experience presupposes them. On the other hand, he offers the faculty of practical reason which allows us to engage morally in the world of experience: what is right to do cannot be determined with reference to anything empirical or sensuous; rather, it can only be determined by pure practical reason which inevitably leads to the necessity of God and freewill. Kant presents the faculties of pure reason and practical reason as serving distinct functions in terms of human epistemology and in doing so he offers us two distinct categories of truth on which to found our understanding of science, morality, God and freewill. Kant’s faculties of reason––pure reason and practical reason are clearly defined and serve distinct functions with regards to understanding of a scientific nature on one hand; and the rational structuring of practical, moral and spiritual belief (the moral imperative as derived from rational insight) on the other. Plato offers us his two categories––true knowledge and true opinion––but here the second is dependent on the first. There is no real experiencial foundation needed in Platonic thought because of his assertion that mathematics transcends experience; it exists in and is representative of the world of being––it is the basis for forming true opinion or a “likely account” of the world of becoming. For Plato, reason––although arranged in hierarchically in two parts––has a single, unified, teleological directive and therefore a clear moral and theological locus and providence. Lucretius, to the contrary, bases his entire materialistic interpretation of nature and being on emperical conclusions; and as a result, his reason functions as a part of the natural material world which constitutes it.

For Kant, Plato and Lucretius, some kind of evolving faculty of aesthetic judgement is crucial in order to consruct meaning––albeit contingently––out of existence. Although it seems that reason and insight can lead to the creation of a practical belief system which can serve human needs for a time, any such system must necessarily be founded as part of history and therefore be subject to development or replacement as needs change and understanding evolves. Universal truth remains elusive.

KIERKEGAARD’S SUBJECTIVE TRUTH