Reading ‘Dao De Ching’ and ‘Zhuangzi’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

As readers of my blog will know, I have sometimes engaged with philosophy with the purpose of establishing a personal worldview or belief system. For example, I have talked about the interrelationship of postmodernism and Christianity or examined Stoicism and Epicureanism. Yet, my encounter with Daoism, a Chinese philosophy/religion, has forced me to rethink my beliefs again. What I find compelling about Daoism is that it does not seem to contradict with my other worldviews. For example, I can still be a postmodernist and theist and still appreciate large parts of its philosophy. In this post, I want to describe my experience of reading two key texts of Daoism, the Dao De Ching and Zhuangzi and discuss which parts of them I find compelling or at least intriguing even if I might not necessarily always agree with them.

The first thing to say is that both of the editors of the two texts I read do not believe that Lao Tzu (The Dao De Ching’s traditional author) and Zhuangzi (who gives his name to the Zhuangzi) are the authors of the texts traditionally assigned to them. Instead, they believe that the texts are collations of ‘sayings’ and ‘parables’ from early Daoist belief. Understanding this is pivotal when trying to explain some of the internal contradictions of the Dao De Ching and Zhuangzi, different parts may be from different sources. Secondly, I want to highlight unlike some philosophies I have commented on in the past, Daoism is still widely practiced in China and is done so in elaborate and diverse fashions. Admittedly, Stoicism is quite popular these days (sometimes not in a good way), yet I do not think many adhere to Stoic logic or physics, instead the focus seems to be on ethics. In my opinion, Daoism not only offers an ethics, but also a metaphysics that is acceptable to a postmodern mind.

Central to both texts is the Dao, or alternatively the ‘way’ or ‘course’ (as my editions named them). The Dao De Ching describes it as ‘the way that can be spoken of is not the constant way; the name that can be named is not the constant name’ Thus an integral part of the Dao is that words are not suitable to define it. Meanwhile, the Zhuangzi says ‘the greatest Course is thus always unproclaimed. Greatest argument is that which uses no words.’ The Dao is also something that you can go along with (i.e it flows and you can go along with it). It is a certain path of going along with the universe’s flow. The Zhuangzi states ‘all-embracing and nonpartisan, unstrained and unbiased, unhesitating but without any fixed direction, going forth to things without secondary considerations, ignoring all calculations, uninvolved in any schemes of knowledge, choicelessly moving along with things: these were aspects of the ancient art of the Course.’ The Dao is also metaphysical and not just ethical, it is ‘what is most unbiased among all doings’ and is a ‘nickname for the vastness involved’. Meanwhile, while describing what it actually is, the Zhuangzi states ‘the Course cannot be heard, whatever is heard is not it. The Course cannot be seen; what is seen is not. The Course cannot be spoken, whatever is spoken is not it. Know that what forms forms has no form. The Course corresponds to name.’ The course is therefore defined by how it cannot be defined and how it cannot be sensed. Secondly, it is forms the form of things, but has no form in itself. In my opinion, this as a metaphysics is quite compelling, it would make sense that which sustains the universe is too complex, too subtle, too elaborate to be stably put in a box of definitions.

The Dao is therefore metaphysical and ethical at the same time- it is my belief that these two philosophical fields should always be considered alongside each other. I will, at some point, upload an essay on the School of Chartres, in which I tried to unite these fields under the banner of craft (which was often used as a literary topoi). But a belief that the Dao is both metaphysical and ethical is crucial for understanding it.

The metaphysics of Daoism and the Dao, requires one further elaboration. The Dao is always transforming, thus everything in the world is also always changing. Rather than focusing on stable concrete forms or ideas (the latter in the Platonic sense), the world is an everchanging process. Confucius (who is interestingly quoted a lot in the Zhuangzi, despite being the founder of Confucianism) says in one section that ‘On and on go the transformations of all the ten thousands things.’ Meanwhile, ‘things do not remain positioned in any one fixed form. The years cannot be held on to, time cannot be stopped; waxing and waning, filling and emptying, each end is succeeded by a new beginning.’ I find this metaphysics very appealing and it suits my postmodernism. Rather than focusing on stable identities, Daoism holds that everything is changing. In the Zhuangzi, we learn death itself is just a transformation and that individuals do not have a fixed identity. This seems to fit with my belief that the identities are fluid and dynamic and to see this applied to metaphysics as well is thought-provoking, it reminds me of my brief encounter with Process philosophy..

What other features of Daoism are appealing to my postmodernism? It has to be how binaries are dealt with. It is true, that they are not simply demolished, but both sides of them are shown to have a subtle interaction. Apparently, ‘ying and yang shine on one another, injure one another, heal one another’. A further example is that ‘safety and danger replace one another, disaster and prosperity give birth to one another, leisure and hurry grind against one another.’ The interaction between different parts of these binaries is intriguing. In another example, the Zhuangzi states ‘ the bright is born from the dark.’ Thus, rather than organising their world around strict boundaries, it seems to be that Daoism believes in interaction between pairs of oppositions. The Zhuangzi states ‘all things are also free of formation and destruction, for these also open into one another, connecting them to form a oneness. It is only someone who really gets all the way through them who can see how the two sides open into one another, connecting them to form a oneness.’ It is clear the parts of binaries are open to each other and join to form a oneness.

So far I have discussed the metaphysics of the Dao and the interaction implicit in binaries, now I want to focus on the ethics of the Dao De Ching and Zhuangzi. Overall, it reminds me of Stoicism and Epicureanism in respect to focusing what is in your control and what is outside of your control. The Dao De Ching comments ‘the sage desires not to desire. And does not value goods which are hard to come by.’ Yet, paradoxically when considered alongside the transformation of all things, the Dao De Ching also suggests ;’what is firmly rooted cannot be pulled out; what is tightly held in the arms will not slip lose.’ Steadiness is still required, even if there are constant transformations. The Zhuangzi reinforces the emphasis on focusing on what is in your control, it states ‘if you’re following a course, it’s better not to mix anything extraneous into it.’ and ‘only a true virtuoso can remain untroubled whether he succeeds or fails.’

This is not the only ethical aspect of Daoist thought, it also argues for the importance of non-action. The Dao De Ching writes ‘the teaching that uses no words, the benefits of resorting to no action, these are beyond the understanding of all This is not the only ethical aspect of Daoist thought, it also argues for the importance of non-action.. The Dao De Ching writes ‘the teaching that uses no words, the benefits of resorting to no action, these are beyond the understanding of all but a very few in the world.’ The Zhuangzi links non-doing to transformation, it comments ‘stay in the state of non-doing and all things will transform themselves.’ Admittedly, I thought this sounded quite fatalistic, but it is important to recognise that non-doing is a way of overcoming what is thrown at you, it is a practice. The Dao De Ching states ‘the most submissive thing in the world can ride roughshod over, the hardest in the world.’ Non-doing is therefore a way of going along with the Dao and thereby overcoming any blockages.

The final thing I want to highlight is Daoism’s political dimension, in particular it seems to have an anarchic or primitivist train of thought. The Dao De Ching argues ‘the people are hungry. It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes that the people are hungry. The people are difficult to govern: it is because those in authority are too fond of action.’ Meanwhile, it also comments ‘reduce the size and population of the state.’ The Zhuangzi suggests the ruler of Wei makes ‘frivolous use of the his state without seeing his error.’ It is interesting to see this proto-anarchism, if it can be called that, my feeling is that the Daoists are in favour of it because of the desire to to go along with the Dao rather than the state, which they may consider as unnatural.

Overall, there are lots aspects of Daoism to admire, even if I do not agree with them all. I hope this post has summarised the main points of the Zhuangzi and Dao De Ching which I found interesting. Overall, it is a philosophy and religion that makes you think a lot- and that is not necessarily a bad thing. I would certainly read more about Daoism.

Reading Sartre’s ‘The Transcendence of the Ego: A Sketch For a Phenomenological Description’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I will discuss Sartre’s ‘The Transcendence of the Ego: A Sketch For a Phenomenological Description’, which was published in 1936.

This book is a complicated analysis of the ego and consciousness. Its suggestion that the ego is not in consciousness, but is instead in the world, seems to evoke images of Heidegger’s Being-in-the-World and Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the body already being immersed in the world. The difference being that the consciousness is still transcendental and accessible through the epoche. Of course, the consciousness is also affected by the phenomenological idea of intentionality (the idea that consciousness is always consciousness of something). Furthermore, the ego is described as an object that only appears on reflection and ‘is radically cut off from the world.’ I am not quite sure what Sartre was trying to argue in this book. Unlike Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, his ideas seem contradictory, but this may be because I have missed a crucial connection.

An interesting point is that the ego is described as an object of consciousness, in other words the ego is an intentional object. I wonder if this if this is the crucial point to understanding Sartre’s arguments. The consciousness is still transcendental, but it is often (a lot) pointed towards the ego, therefore there is no psychical life as such, because the ego is outside, it is already immersed in the world. Yet, Sartre also suggests that the ego is cut off from the world, so I am left wondering, in this instance, what he is trying to argue.

Sartre also describes the ego as the transcendent unity of states and actions. A state could be mode of thought like hatred, whereas an action is doing something like ‘playing the piano’ or ‘driving a car’. This would seem to indicate the ego is always of something and this would fit with it being in the world. Perhaps, this is what Sartre is trying to suggest? I am aware this is one of Sartre’s earlier works, so perhaps this accounts for the confusion.

One point I found particularly interesting is when Sartre engages with the idea that the ego is the creator of its states. He says the processes through which these states are created can vary in different consciousnesses (e.g pre-logical, infantile, schizophrenic etc.). In this instance, Sartre raises a valid question, what about the psychosis of influence (also known as thought insertion)? In such an instance, is the ego really the creator of its states when they are interpreted internally to come from someone else? One could take different approaches to this issue that range from biological to social and interpersonal. I think Sartre raising this question is very valid.

You may have gathered from my recent posts on Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, that I have became very intrigued by how we apprehend objects, in particular with regards to whether experience them as a synthesis (or unity) of their properties or only through one of their properties. Sartre does have something to say about this (naturally, I think this is a very important question for phenomenologists). He describes trees and tables as ‘synthetic complexes’ and suggests ‘every quality is linked to every other quality’. He also writes ‘the unity stems in this case from the absolute indissolubility of elements which cannot be conceived of as separate , except by abstraction.’ With this viewpoint, Sartre seems to lean towards Husserl’s viewpoint on this topic, rather than Merleau-Ponty.

Overall, I found this work to be an interesting, if at times difficult, read. It does not have the ‘ethical’ or ‘existential’ ideas I expected to find in one of Sartre’s works, but is more a commentary on consciousness and the ego. It is still, however, an intricate and also intriguing approach to phenomenology.

The Late Antique Podcast #4: The Justinian Plague

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

I have decided to restart my podcast, it has been a while since my last one, but now feels the right time to do another one. My plan, going forward, is to publish when I want, as I always intended. I see these podcasts as a bit like an average post on my old blog, where I introduce people to particular debates or ideas and take a more general approach, rather than in some of my more philosophical or speculative posts. As in the past, I have copied my script below, as well as posting a podcast player. A warning- I am getting used to podcasting and Audacity again, so apologies in advance.

Podcast:

Script:

Introduction

Hello, this is the Early Medieval Podcast. Before I begin discussing today’s topic, I want to welcome new listeners as well as old ones. Furthermore, as there has been a considerable gap between the third and fourth podcast, I want to emphasise that I will need to get used to making podcasts again, especially with regards to editing using the software Audacity. This may account for the podcast not being as smooth as possible.

So what am I going to talk about today? Well, I am going to cover the Justinian Plague, which I shall introduce below. I will talk about how some scholars take a ‘maximalist’ position that emphasises the plague’s disruption or indeed its impact on the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.  I shall also cover those who take a ‘minimalist’ position, some even calling the Justinian pandemic ‘inconsequential’. Finally, I will discuss about the relationship between science and the humanities, in particular I will highlight how the former can contribute to our understanding of the plague when considered alongside over forms of evidence.

What was the Justinian Plague?

There have been three known major plague pandemics caused by the bacterium Yersinia Pestis. There was one in the twentieth century which affected South and East Asia and another beginning with the Black Death which devastated later medieval and early modern Europe. However, the one I will talk about today, is the Plague of Justinian, which lasted initially from 541 to 544, and reoccurred for the next two centuries.

The plague of Justinian was first reported in the Egyptian port town of Pelusium in 541. From Pelusium it spread quickly east to Gaza and West to Alexandria. By 542, at the latest, it had reached Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as places such as the rest of Greece and also Italy. By 543, it had reached Armenia and Gaul. Rosen suggests it total it could have caused 25 million deaths, however one must be careful when trying to calculate demographic figures for this era, as it is hard to guess the exact population levels.

While the Justinian Plague was first identified in Pelusium, Egypt, it is likely to have originated further south in Africa, according to Sarris. The geopolitical situation of the sixth-century provided the perfect opportunity for it to spread. The Eastern Romans had contact with the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum, whereas the Persians had influence over Arabia. The Eastern Empire and the Persians were both using these contacts in their war against each other. Aksum, itself, was likely in contact with the interior of Africa, thereby allowing the plague to transmit from interior Africa to Ethiopia to the Mediterranean world.

‘Minimalist’ Position

I want to start my discussion of the debate surrounding the Justinian Plague by suggesting it is actually very hard to assess its impact. This is in part due to the lack of demographic data we have, but also because we have to draw a causal link between the Plague and certain alleged responses to it. It is hard to identify whether the plague actually made these changes or whether it was other factors, such as Justinian’s conflicts, or even the longer-term transformations of Late Antiquity. Nevertheless, all that considered, I tend to believe the pandemic did have a large impact, even if it was not the only factor that affected the transformations of the sixth century and of Late Antiquity in general.

Before I discuss the reasons for believing the pandemic did have a big effect, I want highlight the arguments for believing it was not as important as has been argued. The first issue to consider is demography. Wickham suggests demographic decline was localized and was not general across the whole empire. He highlights the longer-term processes that began before the plague in the fifth century, rather than in the sixth-century.  By far one of the most critical accounts of the plague’s impact comes from Mordechai, Eisenberg and Newfield, among other scholars, who call the pandemic ‘inconsequential.’ These authors focus on quantitative measures (though not at the expense of qualitative analysis). For example, they look at databases containing inscriptions. These include the IGLS database for Syria, which according to them shows no evidence of decline between 500 and 650. There was no decrease inscription levels at all. Meanwhile, the authors also looked at the Heidelberg Epigraphic database, which has over 79,000 inscriptions, mainly from the central and western Mediterranean.  Although a general decrease in number was seen over time, there was no immediate impact from the plague.  The final demographic evidence to consider is mass burials. The authors of the paper on epigraphic evidence, suggest that there presence does not necessarily indicate that they were victims of the plague. In fact, they could be the result of social and cultural factors.

There are other reasons summoned by defendants of the ‘minimalist’ view. They often suggest that the literary evidence might have exaggerated the numbers killed by the plague for rhetorical effect. Michael the Syrian, for example, suggests the initial occurrence killed 99.9% of the population. Meanwhile, Procopius, claims the Emperor Justinian killed one trillion people during his reign due to various disasters. Of course, authors may have exaggerated, but this does not mean the pandemic did not kill millions of people. In fact, the ‘apocalyptic’ tones of the authors may point to how serious the plague was.  Finally, the ‘minimalists’ suggest that Justinian decreased issuing legislation before the first wave and that this was not the result of the pandemic.

‘Maximalist’ Position

On the other hand, if one examines the legislation qualitatively, it is possible to see that Justinian believed the plague was worth responding to in the years 542-545.  In the March of 542, he implemented laws that helped to prop up the banking sector, by making it easier to pursue the heirs of debtors and providing the banks access to a special court. In 543, there were clearly so many deaths that the emperor had to respond to the issue of people dying without making proper wills, in fact he had to go as far as clarifying the inheritance rights of minors. In 544, Justinian attempted to impose wage and price controls due to the fact that individuals tried to take advantage of the high demand for labour to obtain higher wages or higher prices for selling goods. Also in 544, the emperor tried to prevent people negotiating for lower costs when it came to church land, he also tried to encourage cultivation by allowing the Church to rent out land perpetually. In my opinion, Sarris summarises the issuing of all this legislation the best when he says, ‘Justinian’s legislation in the face of the first wave of plague not only paralleled, but far exceeded the efforts later recorded on the part of the English state in the face of the Black Death in the 1340s and 1350s.The social hierarchy, and the fiscal machinery of the East Roman Empire, had to be buttressed at any cost.’

Yet, legislation is not the only evidence we have for the serious impact of the Justinian plague, Mischa Meier suggests it created a lot of cultural changes as well. She writes ‘I believe that the Justinianic Plague marks a significant caesura in the transition from late antiquity to the Byzantine Middle Ages – not necessarily because of its immediate effects such as the large death toll and the collapse in trade, military capability and the geography of settlement that most likely accompanied it, but because of its indirect cultural consequences, in other words, because of processes that in the medium term were either partly set in train or at least substantially accelerated by the plague, to which scholars have paid insufficient attention.’ Meier then goes to highlight the different ways in which the plague had this impact.

Firstly, the plague boosted worship of St Mary, this had been gaining some traction since the fifth century, but it was only about the time of the pandemic that it gained its most momentum. This is evidenced by Justinian’s decision to move Hypapante, also known as Candlemass or the Presentation of the Lord, from the fourteenth to the second of February. This transformation, in the year of the pandemic 542, moved the festival from being about Christ to it being about Mary. According to Meier, this was expressly done to alleviate the plague. Secondly, the plague resulted in an increase of iconoclatry, which is the worship of icons, these provided comfort in times of need. The worship of icons was directly tied to disasters during the pandemic. For example, in 544 an icon of Christ in 544 is said to have saved Edessa from the Persians, while a similar icon that appeared in Kamulianai in Asia Minor miraculously reproduced itself. Furthermore, Meier also highlights the role of plague in causing liturgification, which means that religion took an increasingly important role in all aspects of life. The evidence, according to Meier, can come from a comparison between texts before the 540s and those produced in during or after the pandemic. The imitation of Classical writers was no longer desired and religious symbolism was evoked more. Finally, the emperor became more sacralised as a result of the plague and following on from this period, the emperors adopted more religious tones.

I have now discussed the reasons for believing that the pandemic did have a large impact. I tend to agree with these scholars more than those who call it ‘inconsequential.’ The strongest evidence comes from Justinian’s legislation, it seems that he directly responded to the problems it was causing. Meier’s argument is nuanced, so long as we consider that the plague may not have initiated cultural changes, but accelerated them a lot. Finally, I want to highlight how the plague was only one factor that caused the Late Antique world to transform into the Early Medieval Period, while it undoubtedly had a massive impact, it must not be considered in isolation from the other forces at play.

Science and Humanities

I now want to conclude this podcast with a musing on the relationship between science and the humanities. While study of the Justinian Plague has mainly been conducted in the humanities, scientists have increasingly taken interest in it. In particular, they have tried to analyse the DNA of individuals to look for Yersinia Pestis, the bacteria that caused the plague. The authors who did this, including Wagner and Klunk, extracted teeth from two individuals in a cemetery in Aschheim, Bavaria, Germany. They then screened the DNA to identify if they had any Yersinia Pestis in them. They concluded that although the later medieval and modern pandemics were caused by the same organism as the Justinian plague, they were the result of a separate emergence (a different form) of it. Therefore, the plague of Justinian was caused by a significantly different strain than what caused the later pandemics.

Of course, this is not the only way in which science and other disciplines can increase our understanding of the Justinian plague. Sarris discusses some of the questions that could be asked if we take a truly interdisciplinary response. Namely, how did rodents spread the disease and how did it spread to humans? What can genetics and archaeology tell us about the demographic impacts of the plague? All these questions require going beyond a single discipline.

Talking about the relationship between the humanities and sciences requires us to also consider that the ‘sciences’ and ‘humanities’ are not homogenous subjects. For example, a complex systems scientist might tell us about how the pandemic spread, but a geneticist can inform us about the potential biological make-up of the plague. In terms of history, one individual might use qualitative techniques, while another can use quantitative techniques, they could both provide insights.

I agree with Sarris, when he says there is some resistance to science by some Late Antiquarians, due to its association with tracing the supposed origins of ‘ethnic’ groups. Ethnicity, of course, is a constructed and dynamic phenomenon, and there is always a risk that science could be used to promote false discourses about.  However, this does not negate the fact that science can positively affect our understanding of the past, so long as it is used in the correct way and within an interdisciplinary framework that is open to the humanities.

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed this podcast! It has took me a while to do a fourth podcast, but I have enjoyed it a lot. In terms of what I plan to do in the future, I will continue my policy of recording and publishing without a schedule. I would rather have informative podcasts, then make countless ones for the sake of doing so. Nevertheless, I hope this episode has informed you about some of the debates surrounding the Justinian Plague and my thoughts about the relationship between the sciences and humanities.

Bibliography:

Mordechai, Lee, Merle Eisenberg, Timothy P Newfield, Adam Izdebski, Janet E Kay, and Hendrik Poinar. “The Justinianic Plague: An Inconsequential Pandemic?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – PNAS 116, no. 51 (2019): 25546-25554.

Meier, Mischa. “The ‘Justinianic Plague’: The economic consequences of the pandemic in the eastern Roman empire and its cultural and religious effects.” Early Medieval Europe 24, no. 3 (2016): 267-292.

Rosen, William. Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe. London: Pimlico, 2008.

Sarris, Peter. “New Approaches to the ‘Plague of Justinian'” Past and Present (2021)

Sarris, Peter. “The Justinianic plague: Origins and effects” Continuity and Change, 17, no.2 (2002): 169-182.

Wagner, David M., Jennifer Klunk, Michaela Harbeck, Alison Devault, Nicholas Waglechner, Jason W. Sahl, Jacob Enk et al. “Yersinia pestis and the Plague of Justinian 541–543 AD: a genomic analysis.” The Lancet infectious diseases 14, no. 4 (2014): 319-326.

Wickham, Chris. Framing the Early Middle Ages : Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005

Reading Husserl’s ‘Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I will discuss my experience of reading Edmund Husserl’s ‘Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology’, which was published in 1931 and in English for the first time in 1960.

Rene Descartes’ Meditations form one of the key inspirations behind this collection of lectures by Husserl. ‘The aim of the Meditations is a complete reforming of philosophy into a science grounded on an absolute foundation’, Husserl like Descartes aims to establish this science. However, this science is to be based on on the pure ego just like how Descartes went back to it in his Meditations. The scientific aims of Husserl’s phenomenology can be contrasted to Merleau-Ponty’s approach to science. Husserl sees phenomenology as a science of consciousness, whereas Merleau-Ponty, also a phenomenologist, is critical of what Classical science can teach us about the world, especially when disciplines like art can reveal more about the world. It is interesting to see this contrasting approach between two phenomenological thinkers and it shows how the field developed across time.

How do we access pure consciousness? The answer lays in the technique of phenomenological reduction or epoche. This essentially is an approach where one suspends one’s attention away from the objective world to focus on what is in consciousness. The ego abstains ‘from position-takings’ and also ‘practices abstention with respect to what he intuits.’ It is important to point out that Husserl is not suggesting we abandon our belief in the objective world, but rather he urges to redirect our attention to what lays inside.

Of course, this is quite difficult because the concept of intentionality. This idea states that consciousness is always consciousness of something. It would therefore seem very hard to access pure consciousness. Husserl suggests we should split the ego, make a distinction between the part that is a disinterested onlooker and the ‘naively interested Ego’. We should then describe purely what we see in its basic forms. The step after this is to vary the features of the object we are conscious of, we engage in a sort of play through which we consider the different properties of it. For example, we ask is a table still a table if we change its colour? The answer is yes. However, if we remove the top of the table away from its legs then it would be no longer a table. Husserl writes ‘perception, the universal type, thus acquired, floats in the air, so to speak- in the atmosphere of pure phantasiableness’. Once we have distinguished between what is necessary to the object and what is accidental to it, we can then identify the essential part as being part of the structure of consciousness. The idea of imaginary variation (this process) is an interesting methodology and I wonder what would happen if we applied the technique to historical accounts of objects. Might consciousnesses of past individuals/societies be structurally different to our own? Or would they be similar, perhaps even a table can still be a table without its top.

One issue I found interesting is Husserl’s treatment of how we apprehend objects. Merleau-Ponty suggests objects are shown in their entirety by one property, Husserl takes a more traditional approach and suggests we understand objects through synthesis. Husserl talks of a die and how there is a ‘flow’ of consciousness through which we unite its essential features. This is not at odds with imaginary variation, because it is the essential features that unite in the consciousness and not the accidental ones.

Husserl also explores intersubjectivity or the community of monads (individual egos) in quite some depth. He suggests that individuals participate in an objective world and therefore form a group or a community. The existence of other monads makes this existence of the objective world a possibility. Furthermore, the fact that we share intentionality of certain objects means that this world must exist. An interesting question raised by Husserl surrounds the existence of ‘other’ worlds (like Greg Anderson has suggested). Husserl’s response to this idea is quite negative, he calls it ‘pure absurdity’. In fact, he suggests there is only a single community, the community of all monads and groups of monads.

The body also plays a role in Husserl’s phenomenology. This was to my surprise because he is an earlier thinker when compared to Merleau-Ponty. The ‘organism’ plays a sensory role in detecting other monads. Still he suggests that the body is ‘here’ in contrast to the ‘thereness’ of other individuals. It was fascinating to see Husserl mention the body, as it allows one to consider potential similarities and differences between Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.

Husserl’s ‘Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology’ do what they say they will- discuss key aspects of the Husserl’s thought, as well as engaging with the Cartesian approach to consciousness. I would recommend the book for anyone wanting to gain insight into his philosophy, while it is not as readable as Merleau-Ponty’s World of Perception, it is still a good way to acquaint or reacquaint with Husserl’s phenomenology.

Reading Merleau-Ponty’s ‘The World of Perception’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I shall discuss my experience of reading Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ‘The World of Perception’.

A collection of seven lectures, the chapters in this book were originally broadcast on French national radio in 1948. In them, he covers a wide range of themes from science to art to perception. I start by highlighting what Merleau-Ponty has to say about science. As readers of my blog will know, I have an interest in science (in particular, complexity theory), so it was intriguing to find out how a phenomenologist engages with it. Merleau-Ponty, overall, is critical of the what Classical science can tell us about the perceived world. He writes ‘it is not a matter of denying or limiting the extent of scientific knowledge, but rather of establishing whether it is entitled to deny or rule out as illusory all forms of inquiry that do not start from measurements and comparisons.’ Therefore, for Merleau-Ponty, there are ways other than science that can increase our understanding of the world.

Yet, rather than dismiss science as a whole, Merleau-Ponty still sees it is as playing a role. For example, he is not as dismissive of the physics of relativity. He argues that it shows that final objectivity is not possible due to the fact that the observer’s location influences the observation. It also rejects the notion of an absolute observer, therefore it simultaneously suggests that there is no such thing as pure intellect which can describe the world free of all human traces. It seems that modern physics is therefore not at odds with Merleau-Ponty’s vision.

Another crucial aspect of his thought in The World of Perception is his description of the role the body plays in understanding of the perceived world. He writes ‘we come across the idea that rather than a mind and a body, man is a mind with a body, a being who can only get to the truth of things because its body is, as it were, embedded in those things’. Merleau-Ponty thus rejects Cartesian dualism, by suggesting the mind and body are not separate and he states that the body, through which we encounter the world, is already embedded in things. This reminds me of Heidegger’s Being-in-the-World, in which an individual is already immersed in the world rather than a separate subject.

I now wish to discuss Merleau-Ponty’s further treatment of objects. The traditional way of describing our encounter with them, according to Merleau-Ponty, would be that the properties of an object present themselves to our senses and these are united through a process of intellectual synthesis. Merleau-Ponty presents an example of a lemon to discuss this traditional approach. A lemon is yellow to our eyes, for example, and is acidic in taste. It is also a bulging oval. However, he also suggests that this view is incorrect. Instead, he argues that ‘the unity of the object does not lie behind its qualities, but is reaffirmed by each one of them; each of its qualities is the whole.’ I was initially quite hesitant about this idea, but then when you consider that we may only experience one of its properties at single time, then Merleau-Ponty’s idea seems more persuasive. We, after all, might not necessarily see the ‘yellow’ of a lemon while sensing its acidity through taste, even if most people will likely.

A further point about our encounter with objects is that they provoke certain reactions in us, each one recalls a certain way of ‘behaving, provoking in us reactions.’ This is why, according to Merleau-Ponty, we can tell a lot about a person by looking at the objects that surround them.

Merleau-Ponty goes on to discuss a variety of other topics. One lecture is about the perception of animals, a topic that is highly intriguing because we can never know what it is like to be an animal, but yet at the same time we are forced to admit that they must perceive the world in somewhere. Art is another topic Merleau-Ponty addresses. He assigns a special importance to it because art forces us to look at an object and ask questions of it, they ‘convey to [us] the very secret of their substance, the very mode of their material existence.’ Art seems to force us to question what makes an object.

The final issue I wish to discuss is how Merleau-Ponty describes our encounters with other individual humans. Self-consciousness is already immersed in the world, we start from others experience, and not a separate intellect unaffected by what lies outside. Accordingly, ‘the contact I make with myself is always mediated by a particular culture, or at least a language that we have received from without and which guides us in our self-knowledge.’ This again critques the idea of a pure separate intellect, a running theme throughout The World of Perception.

In this post, I have discussed my experience of reading The World of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Overall, it makes a number of interesting points about topics ranging from art to animals. However, for me, the most interesting parts were his discussions of our encounters with objects and what he has to say about science. Hopefully, this post has provided some insight into my thoughts about the text.

Review: The Realness of Things Past, Ancient Greece and Ontological History

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I shall review Greg Anderson’s ambitious 2018 book ‘The Realness of Things Past: Ancient Greece and Ontological History‘.

Anderson, in the reviewed book, ‘proposes a fundamental change in the rules of historical engagement, a paradigm shift that would be roughly equivalent to the quantum revolution in modern physics.’ He argues that we should view each past way of life on its own ontological terms and abandon the categories we apply to them. The Ancient Athenians had no knowledge of ‘religion’, ‘state’ or ‘economy’, these are purely inventions of our own peculiar modern way of being. Meanwhile, we should view the Greek gods as having agency- yes, according to Anderson, they existed because the Athenian world had different rules to ours. Furthermore, the region of Attica was a living organism composed of different components that functioned together, it was not a ‘state’. To argue for this radical acceptance of ontological alterity, Anderson covers a wide range of subjects and disciplines including quantum mechanics, anthropology, postcolonialism and posthumanism.

He begins his account by outlining the traditional view of Classical Athens. Concepts like ‘democracy’ are criticised. Anderson exposes a number of contradictions, if we were to see Athens as such a thing. Firstly, how do we explain Athens imperialistic domination of 170 Greek poleis around the Aegean basin? Secondly, modern accounts are confused by how ‘democratic’ Athenians could hold superstitious beliefs. To many today, it would seem odd that they could be democratic and still hold such beliefs. However, Anderson is keen to point out that such a contradiction only emerges when we place our own expectations on Athens.

Anderson, however, in presenting his account of the fallacies of our way of historical thinking, portrays modernity in a homogenous fashion. For example, many believe in God and democracy, there is no contradiction there. Furthermore, there are many non-democratic countries in the modern world. It would be wrong to presume that everyone would apply the same categories to Classical Athens.

Nevertheless, Anderson’s point that there are alternate ways of being historically is well evidenced throughout the book. For example, the pre-colonial Hawai’ians were not individuals, instead they all participated in the being of the king. Furthermore, the description of Late Medieval society as a ‘body’ again shows there are different ways of existing than the modern Western individual.

A methodological issue that Anderson should have addressed is pertinent here. He takes a literal approach to the sources- in other words he accepts what they say without question. If the Athenians thought there were Gods then they must exist, if Attica is described as a body then it must have been a living organism. Critics could suggest that an ontological approach simply mistakes literary topoi for reality. Just because a writer said something, does not mean he intended it to be took literally. On the other hand, Anderson certainly provides a robust account of the ontological grounds for accepting the alterity of past ‘worlds.’ Quantum mechanics, for example, displaces the idea of an observation independent reality. Meanwhile, posthumanism questions the divide between nature and culture, genetics and nurture, environment and self. There are therefore grounds for believing there could have been alternate ‘worlds’ unlike our own. Of course, on a related note, perhaps due to quantum mechanics and posthumanism, Anderson could have reduced the emphasis on the domination of his notion of Western/Cartesian thinking. His idea of modernity does not stand scrutiny, when considered alongside the theories he mentions.

The final section of the book is focused on portraying what the alternative Athens would have looked life. One suggestion is that individuals were oikoi– family or household units. Athenian oikoi were part of the larger organism that they all comprised of. Individuals, in a sense, were dividuals, they were all components of a wider lifeform. There were also Gods and so rituals formed the main means through which this organism was sustained. Potentially, rituals were even more important than any economic, social or legal actions when it came to maintenance. Households also formed wider groups of being, which in themselves formed Demos, the unitary body. Overall, then Anderson’s portrayal of Classical Athens is quite unlike our ‘democratic’ and ‘individualistic’ conception of it.

Anderson’s book is radical and is somewhat attractive due to the way it appreciates past experiences and does not convert them into modern renditions. However, as highlighted, there are some issues that are addressed if ontological history is to gain wider acceptance. Nevertheless, Anderson remains thought-provoking throughout.

MA Dissertation Journal #5: Spirituality and Carnality, Time and Conclusions

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

I have now submitted my MA Dissertation. In this final journal entry, I want to discuss some of my other findings (apart from the plurivocality of experience) and raise potential areas of research.

A finding that excites me a lot and raises lots of interesting questions is how time acted for Gregory. I would suggest it was completely unlike a linear conception of time. For Gregory, the experiential temporal boundaries were collapsible. In other words, the past, present and future all intersected with each other. In Gregory’s Homilies on Ezekiel we find out that prophecy makes this possible. Gregory writes ‘sometimes the past is proven through future events, sometimes the future from the past.’. He also states ‘sometimes the Prophet is touched from the past and present and also the future.’ Although a nonlinear conception of time is not alien to modern thinking, for example consider how Derrida comments on the deferred nature of consciousness, we do not often use it when thinking about how we understand the past. However, how would this alter our practice of history and how does it contribute to my meta-theory that aims to understand Gregory the Great’s experience?

Mainly, we would be required to see references to scripture as more than just a literary exercise. For Gregory, the past, present and future all blended with each other when it comes to experience. Thus, in the story of Nonnosus, in Gregory’s Dialogues, we find that there is a miracle that is similar to 2 Kings 4:1-7. In both instances, we have a miraculous filling of a jar. Meanwhile, Libertinus’ resurrection of a child through using Honoratus’ sandal is compared to the Elisha using Elijah’s mantle to clear a path through water. Different events indicate a period of time different from their own. Past, present and future are blended. I see my argument, in this instance, as a pointer to a possible direction of future research, perhaps we need to think about how we approach time when studying Late Antique history?

The other main finding of my dissertation centred around the spiritual/carnal divide. The spiritual refers to matters of the interior, whereas carnal indicates the bodily. There is plenty of discussion of this issue in the literature on Gregory. For example, Markus and Moorhead focus on the interiority of experience, in other words that Gregory cared more about the inwardness of experience rather than the outer. Meanwhile, Demacopoulos and Evans take an intermediary approach, suggesting that the spiritual and carnal seep into each other on occasion. Straw, who I agree with, sees the spritual and carnal as points on a continuum, in other words they interact with each other on plenty of occasions. Her proposition is radical and forces to rethink how understand Gregory’s world. The divine and mundane intersect on a continuing basis.

My evidence for this in the Homilies on Ezekiel came in two forms. Firstly, one needs to look at the importance Gregory attaches to the flesh. For example, he states that are minds are to be cut off from carnal pleasures, ‘but not from the necessary care of the flesh.’ He also describes how the body is given life from God. The second form of evidence comes through the presence of figurative language. Gregory writes the the body has eyes and that Israel has a hard forehead. The body is used to discuss spiritual truths, so instead of seeing them as opposites, we must instead see them as poles on a continuum.

Based on my discussion of spirituality and carnality, I came up with three propositions:

  1. We must consider other radical ontologies that were part of Gregory’s experience.
  2. Metaphysically speaking, the landscape of the world is imbued with spirituality.
  3. The inward/outward division needs to be abandoned when discussing Gregory- he was neither ‘in’ or ‘out’ of it.

These, of course, are radical propositions. While I do not want to go into detail in this post, I do want to suggest ways that my ideas might be applied practically. Firstly, the idea that there are other ontologies refers to the fact that there were unique ways of being in the Dialogues. In particular, possession by a spirit would change how think about the composition of a person, in them the spiritual and carnal would touch even closer. Some Lombards, for example, were possessed by a spirit when they entered the Church of St Lawrence and a nun was also possessed for eating a lettuce without the customary blessing. Instead, of viewing such instances as ‘culture’ or as psychotic, we should take these other forms of being seriously. The spiritual and carnal were not separate. I admit, I would like to return to this topic at some point, especially whether people with such experiences are ontologically different from those who do not have them (including in modernity, as well as Late Antiquity).

The idea that the landscape is imbued with spirituality means we have to consider the metaphysical ‘otherness’ of Gregory’s world. For example, consider how ‘water’ occupies a position in two stories in the Dialogues. In Honoratus’ story, water prevents two Goths from crossing a river after stealing a horse. Meanwhile, in Libertinus’ instance, water provides the necessary conditions for a fish to miraculously slip in a bucket, in an area where virtually no fish are found. Water, one of the constituents of the world, is directed spiritually.

Finally, the inward/outward division should be abandoned. In other words, beings are not separate from the world, but are part of it. The prime example, for Gregory, is Christ who inhabited the world through a body. Humans are not at a distance from the world, but are part of it.

I have briefly described some of my findings and ideas, hopefully this has provided some insight into my dissertation, even if this post cannot be comprehensive. I will now end this dissertation journal entry by raising two conclusions. I begin by suggesting it may be possible to go ”beyond Gregory’ with the hermeneutic phenomenological aims of my dissertation. Firstly, it might be possible to establish a experiential or phenomenological community, which Gregory and others were part of. In many of Gregory’s letters we find scriptural references, suggesting his ideas might have had influence beyond his own personal experience. Letter VII: 7 quotes 1 Corinthians, Psalms and 2 Kings among many other Biblical books. Meanwhile, Letter III:53 contains references to Wisdom and Matthew. The ideas found in Gregory’s exegesis, and their matching points in Ricoeur, may have influenced the experience of others beyond an individual level. It may even be possible to expand the temporal boundaries of my ‘meta-theory’. In 914, a monk called Gomez, composed a manuscripts of Gregory’s Commentary on Job and in 1275 a manuscript of Gregory’s Homilies on Ezekiel was in circulation. Of course, such a proposal needs further research, but perhaps reception studies would be a good framework for exploring this topic.

Finally, I want to end with reference to some of my ideas as outlined in my first MA dissertation journal. In this, I proposed a new model of history based on comparing modern and Late Antique insights. I even called myself an empiricist (though not in the sense of looking for ‘facts’). In other words, I wanted to question whether Gregory and Ricoeur’s thinking were compatible with each other. What I would say is that my dissertation suggests they partially are comparable, especially on plurivocality. Based on this, future research could take the direction of pursuing the possiblity of creating meta-theories, such as the one in my dissertation. Can we apply theory within an empirical framework? Such a discussion is not only potentially fruitful, but necessary for our understanding of Late Antiquity.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my dissertation journal entries. I have thoroughly enjoyed my project and believe it not only shines light on Gregory the Great’s experience, but opens up potential future areas of research. Nevertheless, my project still questions different aspects of Gregory’s experience from the unique vantage point of hermeneutic phenomenology.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Anonymous, Gregory the Great’s Homilies on Ezekiel. Accessed 05/10/2021 at https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/pfp/id/3219

Gregory the Great, Dialogues in St Gregory the Great: Dialogues translated by Odo J. Zimmerman. New York: Fathers of the Church Inc, 1959.

Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel in Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel translated by Theodosia Tomkinson. Perrysville: Centre for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2010.

Gregory the Great. Letters translated by James Barmby. Accessed 10/10/2021 at https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3602.htm.

Gomez, Gregory the Great’s Commentary on Job. Accessed 05/10/2021 at https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/MS-LATIN-00083/1

Secondary Sources

Demacopoulos, George E. Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor and First Man of Rome. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015.

Evans, Gillian R. The Thought of Gregory the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)

Markus, Robert A. Gregory the Great and His World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Markus, Robert A. Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press,1996.

Moorhead, John. Gregory the Great. Abingdon: Routledge, 2005.

Straw, Carole E. Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

MA Dissertation Journal #4: Gregory the Great and His Plurivocal Interpretations

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I aim to discuss what I believe is one of the key findings of my dissertation. The idea that Gregory the Great thought there multiple senses of scriptural interpretation is not novel, but the idea this multiplicity affected his experience of the world is. This post shall discuss this finding.

I want to start by using some analogies. I did this in one of my chapters. Imagine a crime scene with multiple witnesses and a detective who is investigating it. Note how each person would take something different from their observations. A neutral observer is shocked by the events that have happened. Meanwhile, a family member is overwhelmed with emotion. Finally, a detective looks at the cold hard facts. In some instances, a person may take multiple interpretations of the events, for example, the family member is also shocked while also being emotional. Nevertheless, the point is clear- multiple interpretations of the same event are possible.

This may not exactly be a shocking revelation- but I want to argue that one person can simultaneously experience things on multiple levels. One person can interpret one thing in multiple senses. Imagine a person with symptoms of psychosis. They may interpret an event in light of their hallucinations , but then later reflect and identify what ‘really’ happened. Of course, some could argue, this analogy does not reflect ordinary experience- but I would raise, especially in a Late Antique setting, psychotic symptoms are far from unusual. For example, Bachrach and Kroll have have compared 134 medieval visions with the experiences of 23 hospitalised patients in Minnesota, they identified that in the former case most of the individuals were not considered psychotic. Therefore, I think my point, about multiple interpretations by an individual stands to an extent.

One question that has been pivotal in my study, is making the leap from text (scripture) to world (experience). I have explained this through how text and world both contain things that signify. However, I believe my analogies reinforce this connection. If multiple interpretations are possible in both world and text, then we can say that there is stronger evidence for comparing them.

Now that I have established this, I now want to focus on what Gregory says about the senses of interpretation. He does not provide an exposition of it in his Homilies on Ezekiel, however if one looks at the Commentary on Job you find out that his interpretative strategy consists of three senses; the historical, allegorical and moral. However, this picture can be complicated further by suggesting that there can be multiple instances of one sense at the same time. When discussing the four creatures that appear at the beginning of the Book of Ezekiel, Gregory suggests they are an allegory for the Four Evangelists, Christ and preaching in the four corners of the world. However, if this appears complex, then one needs to also consider that words can also signify multiple meanings at the same time. ‘Fire’, according to Gregory, signifies the Holy Spirit, despitefulness of mind and God because he cleanses the soul. So what we are faced with is an intricate web of signification, however because of the connection I established earlier between world and text we must also consider how this all affects experience.

This brings me to the final chapter (bar the conclusion) of my dissertation, which aims to apply my meta-theory, including the plurivocal aspect, to Gregory the Great’s Dialogues, a hagiographical collection. The purpose of this is to test my theory and to see how it alters our view of Gregory’s and potentially Late Antique experience in general. It is worth pointing out here, that Ricoeur, the later thinker I am examining for my dissertation, also believes in the plurivocality of scripture, therefore in my meta-theory multiple interpretations hold a prominent place. However, we still have to consider how to make the jump from the Homilies to the Dialogues. How do we know that the meta-theory developed through Gregory and Ricouer is applicable to the Dialogues‘ more everyday accounts as well as scripture? The answer is in Joan Petersen’s 1984 book The Dialogues of St Gregory the Great in their Late Antique Cultural Background. Part of this book argues that Gregory’s Biblical typology can be applied to the Dialogues as well. The connection between the Homilies and the Dialogues is proved by the latter’s constant allusions to Biblical figures. St Benedict is compared to Noah. Honoratus, like John the Baptist and Moses, has the Holy Spirit descend on him. These two instances only form part of the constant reference to the Bible, suggesting Gregory’s interpretative strategies can be applied to the everyday accounts of the Dialogues as well.

However, what actually happens when we apply the scriptural strategies to experience? If one is doing this through the Dialogues, one needs to read between the lines, as while they do contain lots of Biblical allusions, Gregory does not provide exposition on the multiple meanings that events, things, or objects may have in the Dialogues. To illustrate how an account of experience might affected by this plurivocality, I will use the example of Honoratus. This Holy Man abstained from meat and his parents laughed at him. However, when a servant went to collect a bucket of water for him, a fish slipped in that provided enough food for an entire day. The historical sense of interpretation would suggest that a fish genuinely jumped into the bucket, which, although unlikely, is not impossible. The allegorical sense would suggest that Honoratus received spiritual nourishment from God due to his abstinence. The moral sense would be that the man was cleared of ‘dishonour and ridicule’ by the discovery of the fish. As you can see, it is possible to theorise multiple meanings from one account, experience signified all three of these meanings simultaneously.

I hope this post has given some insight into plurivocality and how it relates to an aspect of my meta-theory. The idea that multiple interpretations are possible by an individual is one of the key components of my dissertation and in this post I have discussed some of my ideas pertaining to it.

Bibliography:

Primary Sources

Gregory the Great, Commentary on Job. Accessed 29/09/2021 at http://www.lectionarycentral.com/GregoryMoralia/Epistle.html

Gregory the Great, Dialogues translated by Edmund G. Gardener in The Dialogues of St Gregory the Great. Merchantville: Evolution Publishing and Manufacturing, 2010.

Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel translated by Theodosia Tomkinson in Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Perrysville: Centre for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2010.

Secondary Sources

Bachrach, Bernard and Jerome Kroll, “Medieval Visions and Contemporary Hallucinations,” Psychological Medicine 12 (1982): 709-721

Joan Petersen, The Dialogues of St Gregory the Great in their Late Antique Cultural Background. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1984.


Reading Derrida’s ‘Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl’s Phenomenology’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

As those who follow my blog know, one of my interests is philosophy and also, in particular, phenomenology. Meanwhile, I have also tried to attempt to engage with Jacques Derrida on multiple occasions, applying his early ideas to several contexts, like emotions and most recently Late Antique thinking. Reading Derrida is challenging, but rewarding, and this is particular evident in his engagement with Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology in ‘his 1967 work ‘Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl’s Phenomenology.’ This post will discuss my experience (no pun intended) of engaging with this text and my thoughts about it.

One of the things I noticed about this text is that serves a good introduction to some of Derrida’s early ideas (although admittedly the discussion reveals these throughout and not all at the beginning). One of these is his criticism of the metaphysics of presence. This is essentially the idea that the history of philosophy has always emphasised presence over absence. Derrida does not argue that absence is more important than presence, rather he suggests that one is no more important than the other in their play with each other. One criticism of Derrida could be his characterisation of the history of philosophy as mostly surrounding this metaphysics of presence, surely the philosophical traditional cannot be subsumed under one label? From what I am reading of Gregory the Great for my MA dissertation at the moment (and also Straw’s work on that Pope) this idea seems futile at best. Interestingly (though I will not go in depth here) the binary of spirituality and carnality is found in these works and one wonders how Derrida’s critique of the metaphysics of presence would influence how these texts reflect experience. On the other hand, Derrida’s ideas are more nuanced than a simple categorisation of all of philosophy under one banner. His treatment of Husserl is far from a simple polemic and is a carefully constructed examination of his texts. He labels Husserl’s analysis using words like ‘rigor’ and ‘subtlety’. Furthermore, Derrida highlights how phenomenology, in some ways, challenges traditional metaphysics.

However, what marks ‘Voice and Phenomenon’ apart is that its criticism of presence is directly related to consciousness and experience, which naturally interests me a lot. Derrida writes how Husserlian analysis continues ‘the Greek metaphysics of presence into the “modern” metaphysics of presence as self-conciousness’. Furthermore, he states ‘If the punctuality of the instant is a myth, a spatial or mechanical metaphor, a metaphysical concept inherited’ and also ‘if the present of the presence to the self is not simple’ then ‘the principle of Husserl’s entire argumentation is threatened.’ It seems Derrida is critquing the idea that consciousness can be fully present. This would certainly raise questions of the possibility of phenomenology. This threat is highlighted again when Derrida writes:

‘We see very quickly then that the presence of the perceived present is able to appear as such only insofar as it is in continuous composition with a non-presence and a non-perception, namely, primary memory and primary anticipation (retention and protension). These non-perceptions are not added on, do not accompany contingently the actually perceived now, indispensably and essentially they participate in its possibility.’

The idea behind this statement is that memory and anticipation create a non-presence, a moment in time is never fixed and is always open to the past and present. This means, consciousness, is never fully in the present. This idea makes me think quite a lot about the possibility of phenomenology. However, I think it is still is a realisable approach. Phenomenology often directly confronts the issue of time. In my studies, for example, prophecy plays an important role because it is a statement that blends time together, it can be about the future but be spoken in the present, or it can be about a moment in the past and yet also direct the attention to future possibilities. To clarify, I do not think Derrida’s critique of presence undermines phenomenology, rather I think it only raises the need to consider the historical dimension of any study of consciousness and experience.

My other favourite part of ‘Voice and Phenomenon’ is when Derrida talks the ‘voice’ aspect of the title. Here he covers his take on logocentrism, arguing that writing has often been subordinated to speech. When reading Of Grammatology, I remember this idea coming up quite a lot, so it was interesting to see how Derrida addresses it in the context of consciousness and phenomenology. Traditionally, it has been assumed, according to Derrida, that the voice represents consciousness. This presumption is again based on the idea that the voice summons something that is present in the mind. When reading this, I had a thought. Sometimes our voice does reflect what is present in our mind almost instantly, but we also often encounter scenarios where we have to think before we speak. Therefore, consciousness can precede speech. It can also follow speech, for example, when we reflect and analyse what we have said and what reaction it might have caused. Therefore, in my opinion, we cannot say speech summons the conciousness.

Another running theme in ‘Voice and Phenomenon’ is the relationship between expression and indication. This was the most challenging idea for me. In particular, Husserl analyses these signs and the role they play in life. The difference between indication and expression was initially not clear for me.

The final subject I want to cover is Derrida’s coverage of différance in this text. In particular, its relation to another Derridean idea about supplementary. Derrida connects these two terms together when he writes ‘supplementarity is really differance, the operation of differing that. at once, splits and delays presence.’ He also states ‘the structure of supplementarity is very complicated’. The signifier apparently does not just represent the absent signified, it substitutes it and carries on its relation with the missing presence. Therefore, the relationship between supplementarity and différance is clear, the second delays presence, whereas the first maintains a relationship with it. This results in a joint attack against the metaphysics of presence.

To conclude, I believe ‘Voice and Phenomenon’ not only offers a good introduction to Derridean ideas, but that it also offers some interesting insights into phenomenology. I particularly like his criticisms of the metaphysics of presence and I think, going forward, I will need to consider his phenomenological views.

MA Dissertation Journal #3: Can Derrida Be Applied Historically?

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I will expand on some thoughts I have had while doing my dissertation, which nevertheless cannot fit in my thesis. You may know that I am interested in whether theories can be grounded in evidence. After all, one of my dissertation’s aims is to see if Paul Ricoeur’s ideas can be compared to Gregory the Great’s. In this post, I will explore the controversial and radical idea that the ideas of Jacques Derrida are not only sound but can also be applied in a historical context within an empirical basis. Admittedly, much more research needs to be done to verify my argument, but I am using this post as an opportunity and tangent to investigate the idea’s potential.

The first comparison between Derrida and Late Antique thinking centres around semiotics and language. But first, I want to highlight how semiotics again plays a pivotal role. In my previous post, I talked about the importance of semiotics to connecting the world and text. However, I am now becoming aware, as my dissertation progresses, that signs and language are crucial topics in philosophy, many ideas cannot be addressed without dealing with the relevant issues.

One Derridean theory that might be applicable to Late Antiquity is différance. This idea has its origins in Ferdinand de Saussure’s conception that words receive their meaning through their relationship with others. Derrida, building on this, suggests that words can never fully summon their meaning because of their interdependence. However, why is this idea potentially useful for Late Antique studies? Moorhead, in his introduction to Gregory the Great, writes ‘the need to interpret the Bible allegorically, and the possibility that that something could have more than one meaning, allowed Gregory to see words as unstable in what they signified. Furthermore, Markus, in Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity, describes signs as ‘ambivalent’ and that ‘their meaning has to be struggled for.’ Both these two authors are using evidence for these points, Markus is using Augustine’s works, while Moorhead is using Gregory the Great’s. In the Late Antique conception, signs were seen as complicated and unstable. Naturally, we have to appreciate the fact that Augustine’s ideas vary from source to source and that Gregory never wrote a full treatise on semiotics, but it appears différance may have a historical basis when talking about Late Antiquity.

What are the implications of this? Well for one thing it means that the meaning of a text is never quite fully realised. The Bible, because of the ambivalently of its language, is open to different interpretations. Moorhead recognises this while discussing Gregory the Great, he writes ‘the deepest books are those which are most open to different readings and, in a sense, allow themselves to be perpetually remade as people read them in various ways’. He also adds ‘The Bible positively invites different kinds of interpretation, for it has a kind of flexibility which enables it to adjust itself to the capacities of its reader and grow with them’ This sounds a bit like Derridean Deconstruction- the Bible is not internally coherent and its contradictions can be exposed. Different readers have different readings. However, this only describes one sense of what Deconstruction actually is and not its other senses (the word, intentionally, is very hard to decipher).

The other meaning of Deconstruction, as explored in Of Grammatology, is that it attempts to reveal the that oppositions, like those of speech/writing and nature/society can be undermined. Historically, such binaries have dominated philosophical thinking. Moorhead, for example, comments ‘one of the key structures in Gregory’s thought is the distinction between the inward and the outward, and his invariable tendency to see the former as being the most important.’ It would appear initially that the Derridean examination of binaries does not apply to Gregory the Great. However, Straw, in Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection, reveals that this sense of deconstruction is in fact applicable to how Gregory viewed the world. Straw’s approach is almost Derridean and the binary she examines in most depth is the spiritual/carnal one, which is of course very important for the phenomenological dimension of my dissertation. She writes, on this topic, ‘Gregory sees the carnal and spiritual realms as interrelated, as connected as endpoints of a continuum.’ Carnal signs also point to ‘the spiritual world beyond’ and ‘the visible world of flesh and blood and mere human experience reveals a variety of mysteries links with the transcedent, invisible world of the spirit’. However, one can go even further in making the link between Derrida and Straw. A large part Of Grammatology is dedicated to analysing the works of the philosopher Jean Jacques-Rosseau. Derrida looks at the binary of north/south in his work. Straw similarly attempts to examine north/south in the writings of Gregory the Great, she writes ‘the cold north wind is the raw numbness of the evil spirit, while the south wind warms and thaws the Holy Spirit.’ However, simultaneously the role of north/south and cold/warm is reversed, as Straw states that Gregory writes that one may burn with carnal desires and be cooled by holy thoughts. Thus, in Gregory’s thought, binaries such as the ones discussed can be examined, inverted and analysed.

To summarise, some of Derrida’s ideas seem to not only be present in the scholarship on Gregory the Great, but are also found in the evidence used by the discussed writers. What does this mean for how we should approach Late Antiquity? Well, for me, it proves modern theory can have a basis in the evidence. There does not need to be contradiction between the theoretical and the empirical. Now of course this post is only a brief elaboration of one of my thoughts while doing reading for my dissertation, but it opens up a whole new area of research. What else can Derridean theory do to change our understanding of Late Antiquity?

Bibliography

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.  Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press 1977.

de Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Wade Baskin.  New York City: McGraw-Hill Paperbacks, 1966.

Markus, Robert A. Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996.

Moorhead, John. Gregory the Great. Abingdon: Routledge, 2005.

Straw, Carole. Gregory The Great: Perfection in Imperfection. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.