I have recently started reading Jean-Luc Marion’s The Erotic Phenomenon, and, although I am only thirty pages in, Marion has already raised a question that seems to be of high pertinence - what has happened to love in philosophy? Why is philosophy so afraid of love?

He gives a number of reasons for asking this question. The first - and glaringly obvious - reason is etymological. Philosophy means, literally, the love of wisdom (philo “love” + sophia “wisdom”). It is not the study or science of wisdom, which would be better termed “sophiology”.

It could be argued, as a commenter did on my post To the End, that the history of philosophy shows it to be something more like a research program that occupies itself with the acquisition of knowledge. Yet, one of the great founders of the philosophical tradition, Plato, devotes a whole work to love, setting eros up as the ladder upon which we should ascend to contemplation of the highest reality. Is Plato just an aberration? I am inclined to say that he is not. Rather, it seems likely that his followers shifted their trajectories so that they might pursue the science of wisdom.

Of course, such a suggestion might seem dubious, because it invariably calls into question the bulk of important philosophical work throughout the ages. Can we really accuse an entire tradition of radically misunderstanding its progenitor? Possibly. Particularly if, near its inception, a radical shift is already taking place. In the case of philosophy, we might attribute this shift to Aristotle, who was almost certainly more interested in a science of wisdom than in its love. Combine this shift with the fact that Plato was relatively unknown throughout key passages of the history of western philosophy - key passages in which Aristotle reigned supreme as “The Philosopher” - and it becomes understandable that philosophy should have lost its path.

Yet, although philosophy may have found itself in a dark forest midway down its path of life, this is not a reason to think that it cannot again attain to its proper sphere in Paradise. As Marion points out, even the desire for knowledge is still a desire, which, in its primary interpretation, is erotic. He suggests - and I agree - that pursuing this spark of desire and, indeed, fanning it into flame may help us to regain the love that is so vital to philosophy.

If any of this sounds interesting, I highly recommend picking up Marion’s book.

Here’s something I stumbled across today that I thought was pretty interesting in relation to so called “house churches.” It’s short. Check it out here :)

The Issue of the Visible Church and Apostolic Succession

Introduction

The early Christians after the New Testament era believed that the Church was a visible hierarchical society instituted by Jesus Christ that persists through succession of apostolic authority. They also claimed to have received this teaching from Jesus Christ and the apostles. Orthodox, Roman, and Anglican (each of which claims to be Catholic—and I will call them such for the sake of argument) concur—the Church is indeed the visible hierarchical society instituted by Jesus Christ that endures through time by succession from the apostles. They each hold to the authority of tradition in some way and to some degree; so the fact that the apostolic fathers and their immediate descendants all agree about the definition of Church has a lot of weight in terms of what we must believe. Of course the good Catholic apologist will also hold that there are good reasons based on the teaching of the New Testament to believe this. And for some, those biblical arguments would be sufficient all by themselves.

In this post, I will not argue that the Catholic view is true. I will just explain what it is, what it implies, how it relates to the Protestant view, and what the structure of an argument for the Catholic view might look like.

Definition

Lets go over that definition of the visible Church. To say the Church is visible means that it has some kind of structure (people standing in distinct, repeatable, unifying relations to each other) and has externally-perceptible criteria for membership. There are some signs—social badges—for group-membership. These may include baptism, a correct confession of faith, and perhaps submission to the hierarchy.

To say the Church is hierarchical means that there are at least some people who have authority over other people within this society. At this stage we don’t have to flesh out exactly what the hierarchy consists of, if there is such a thing.

Saying the Church is a society that is instituted by Jesus means that the Church does not exist by the consent of like-minded individuals, but that it was directly founded by Jesus himself. There is a difference between saying God gave Christians the power to form fellowships of like-minded individuals if they so choose and saying that God himself caused the initial existence and structure of a group. On the first view, it is the right of Christians to form such fellowships by common consent; on the second view it is only the prerogative of God to initially cause a society. The first view may agree that God is involved in bringing about the existence of the fellowship; but they cannot say that God explicitly designated that this specific institution should exist and that it is the Church.

By “the Church persists through succession of apostolic authority” I mean that the hierarchy of the Church is permanent and necessary and that the hierarchy persists through the ordination of new leaders by old leaders. This ordination happens sacramentally—there is a spiritual gift transferred by laying on of hands and prayer. The ordination is accompanied by a continuity of teaching—the doctrines of the Christian faith are passed on to the new hierarch(s). On this view, it is only a Church leader who can ordain another Church leader. So any group that comes into existence with ordained leaders in discontinuity with the pre-existing successors of the apostles is not the Church. (note: I have not stated that specifically bishops must be the people who ordain; nor have I stated that apostolic succession is a sufficient condition for a Christian to be a leader in the Church)

The Protestant view

Protestants, however, must deny that the Church is a visible hierarchical society instituted by Jesus Christ that persists through apostolic succession. There may indeed be a visible Church—there may be externally-visible criteria for membership, and a definite structure. But it cannot be one instituted directly by Jesus Christ as his Church on earth. A visible church would have to be a group of like-minded friends that got together and decided to exercise a right to create a group for followers of Jesus. Once created, this group could have structure and criteria for membership.

However, by definition, getting together and deciding to create a group for followers of Jesus does not amount to having an institution caused initially and directly by God Himself. The difference is between exercising a right to assemble, and assembling in an institution that previously existed and was definitively founded by an exercise of authority. This fellowship could not persist by having apostolic succession either. For this would require that it be directly instituted and given ministerial powers by Jesus at the beginning of Christianity; and it would require that this institution was preserved by sacramental ordination, and no Protestant can hold that their institution has apostolic succession in this sense.

Some Distinctions

Saying that there is a traceable line of bishops who laid hands on each other throughout Christian history does not mean that apostolic succession is true per se. Perhaps bishops aren’t the proper office to transmit succession. Perhaps the early Christians misunderstood the apostles’ and Christ’s teaching about authority; they didn’t actually teach that you had to be ordained by ordaining leaders to be a Church leader, and Protestants are right. This would make apostolic succession irrelevant even it if “existed” in the sense that there is a traceable line of laying-on of hands. Apostolic succession as a doctrine would be, strictly speaking, false.

Saying that apostolic succession is true does not just mean that bishops conferred a gift of office. Succession has to exist in a way that maintains organizational continuity with the already-existing Church. It also has to include a preservation of teaching content.

Implications

If Christianity is true but apostolic succession is false, then Protestantism is true. If apostolic succession is true, then either Orthodox, Roman Catholics, or Anglicans are the Church (or some combination of these). If Protestantism is true, then we should all be Protestants of some kind; for it would be dishonest to become Catholics if the Church is not a visible hierarchical institution founded by Jesus Christ and perpetuated by apostolic succession. If apostolic succession is true, then whatever we ultimately end up doing, we should not be Protestants. There might be reasons to prefer Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism or whatever; but there will have to be a choice between one of those three groups.

What an argument for Apostolic Succession might look like

Apostolic succession cannot be proved by producing a list of bishop-to-bishop ordination stretching back to the apostles. This wouldn’t prove apostolic succession as a doctrine—it wouldn’t show it is necessary to have this ordination to be a part of the Church’s hierarchy. Consequently it wouldn’t be a sufficient condition for showing apostolic succession is true.

But neither would it be necessary to produce such lists. Just because we don’t have the lists doesn’t mean there were no ordinations. Also, it doesn’t mean that we can’t produce powerful arguments for apostolic succession—arguments that would imply that the ordinations did happen even if we can’t trace all of them. Think about your ancestry. If we cannot produce your entire family tree going back to your great-great-great-great grandparents, that doesn’t mean you didn’t have great-great-great-great grandparents. How do we know that you had these grandparents? Because we know that a necessary condition for the existence of a child is parents who give birth to that child. This entails that any child that exists today had as many parents as necessary to cover the time-gap between the first human being and the present generation.

Similarly, if we have good reason to believe that ordination can only happen by succession, and Jesus promised the incorruptibility of the Church as a whole (perhaps in his promise to St. Peter in Matthew 16) then even if we cannot produce the family tree of ordination in the episcopacy, this wouldn’t detract from the case for apostolic succession.

As Cirlot pointed out in Apostolic Succession: is it True? to argue for apostolic succession, one would have to show that all of the following are true:

a. All ministerial authority comes from God, either directly through miraculous revelation or indirectly through succession.
b. The apostles could transfer some or all of their powers to successors.
c. Transfer of powers happened through ordaining (laying on hands and praying) that conferred the spiritual gift of office.
d. The power to ordain was not transmitted to all orders of the hierarchy; nor was it transmitted to the laity; nor was it conferred by charismatic leaders who were not part of the hierarchy.

Taken together these principles entail that “only those could ordain who had been ordained to ordain”. In other words, only successors of the apostles who were ordained to a position in the hierarchy that had the power of ordination could ordain more hierarchs (I will use Cirlot’s shorthand from now on).

A. Exegetical arguments: analyze the meanings of various biblical passages and argue that when taken in conjunction they entail that apostolic succession is true. Here is what one such argument might look like:

1. If Scripture teaches that a.-d. are true, then “only those could ordain who had been ordained to ordain”.
2. Scripture teaches a.-d.
Conclusion: therefore “only those could ordain who had been ordained to ordain.”

B. Arguments from testimony: analyze early post-apostolic Christian teachings and argue backward that they imply that this was the apostolic belief. Here is what one such argument might look like:

1. If most or all early Christians who claimed to receive their teachings from the apostles or their successors taught that a.-d. are true, then it is very likely that “only those could ordain who had been ordained to ordain”.
2. Most or all early Christians who claimed to receive their teachings from the apostles or their successors taught a.-d.
Conclusion: therefore, probably, “only those could ordain who had been ordained to ordain.”

One might object that the testimony of early Christians outside the Bible is irrelevant if what they say isn’t taught in the Bible. If something is taught against in the Bible, then obviously it doesn’t’ matter if early Christians believed it or not. But if the teaching is just not stated in the Bible, this wouldn’t show that it wasn’t the view of the apostles. It might be oral tradition; we shouldn’t assume a specific version of Sola Scriptura when trying to argue against apostolic succession, because that would be question-begging.

It seems that both alternatives available to the Protestant about how to deal with early extra-biblical Christian attestation to apostolic succession are uncomfortable. If we say that the early Christians immediately after the New Testament was written got something so obvious and fundamental as their own roles and authority wrong, then they should not be trusted. Most Protestants aren’t comfortable with saying the Church apostatized from what Jesus had intended for it early on, and that early “Christians” after the New Testament are untrustworthy. But if we aren’t willing to say this, then we should let the beliefs of early Christians after the apostolic age influence our exegesis of the New Testament and our beliefs about what the apostles taught. For if someone was in a reliable position to receive apostolic teaching and accurately attest to it, then when they claim to represent apostolic teaching there is some prior probability that their interpretation of early Christian beliefs is trustworthy. So if trustworthy, early sources unanimously teach the Catholic view of the Church, then we should consider them evidence for the truth of the Catholic view of the Church. So which is it: are the apostolic fathers trustworthy (which makes the Catholic position much more plausible) or are they unreliable and probably apostate (which is not something that most Protestants would want to admit)?

Conclusion

Hopefully the groundwork laid in this post can contribute to clarifying the terms in subsequent posts about Church authority, where these things are actually argued for.

The Anglican bishop Cirlot wrote a book on whether or not apostolic succesion is true (incidentally, its title is Apostolic Succession: Is It True?  Practical name for his book, eh?).  One of the objections he had to deal with to the Catholic position was that there seems to be a lot of Christians outside of of the visible Church.  The Catholic view (not Roman–just universally held by Christians across the centuries; this is the view shared by Anglicans, Orthodox, and Roman Catholics) is that the Church is an organization with visible criteria of membership, instituted directly by Christ with a heirarchical structure that has sacramental grace.  The Church is a polis, a city or nation of sorts–not an earthly one, surely, but a true polis none the less.

Cirlot mentions the arguments of the archbishop of Cantebury William Temple for the conclusion that Protestants are fully the Church in just as unqualified a way as the Catholics (which here designates Anglicans, Orthodox, and Romans).  The main argument is from the superabundance of grace that we see outside the Church.  The moral and spiritual character of Protestants is not excellent across the board; there are some bad apples.  But there are so many good Protestants that it makes the Catholic view of the Church improbable.  How could a Catholic possibly deny that a good Protestant is in the Church? 

We would expect that if the Catholic view is correct, then there would be less spiritual abundance outside the Church–even if there was some grace.  This argument might be formulated as follows:

Argument against the Catholic view of the scope of the Church

1. If Catholicism is true, then Protestants would not have the degree and kind of grace x (where x is some amount that is reckoned to be significant enough to imply someone is in the Church).

2. Protestants have the degree and kind of grace x.

Conclusion: Therefore Catholicism is false.

Cirlot’s answer to this argument is interesting.  He distinguishes between covenanted and uncovenanted grace–grace that is had by the channels divinely-ordained and revealed, and that grace which works outside those channels to accomodate invincible ignorance and sincere faith.  In order to object to the Catholic view, one has to hold to one of the following two options:

Two ways of affirming that Protestants are members of the New Covenant

OPTION I:

There is no distinction between covenanted and uncovenanted grace.  This would imply that the Catholic view is false, and so anyone who is Christian in any sense is in an equally-valid place (or if they are not in an equally-valid place as other people, it isn’t because of some absence of conformity to the channels of grace designated as valid and authoritative by divine revelation).  There are two ways one could hold this view:

a. State that there is no new covenant, and there is grace.  This would be a denial of Christianity, which holds there is a new covenant.

b. State that there is only grace in the new covenant, and not outside.  Then affirm that Protestants have grace; hence they are in the new covenant.  This has two implications

Firstly, this would deny religious inclusivism, the thesis that people can be saved by Christ without explicitly believing in Him.  Because I believe in religious inclusivism, and it is favored by many Christians (most conservatives outside evangelicalism are inclusivists of some sort) neither I nor they would consider this to be a valid way out. 

Secondly, this would also imply that any group of people that claimed to be Christian but did not have all of the signs of the Church–which for the Reformers meant rightly dividing the word, rightly administering the sacraments, and rightly dealing out Church discipline–would in fact not be Christian or have salvation (because they would be outside the Church.  If one is not willing to say that people who don’t teach all the important parts of Christian doctrine correctly, and who don’t have the right view of the sacraments and how they should be done, and who don’t have the right Church structure and way of administering discipline are not Christian, then this is not acceptable.

OPTION II:

2. State that Protestants are members of the New Covenant (and affirm that there is grace outside the New Covenant).  In order to do this, two things have to be argued for:

- First one must argue for a specific view about the breadth of the New Covenant.  There have to be definate signs that some group of people is the Church by which we can identify them.  Working from the Protestant definition of the visible Church, one could say that a person has to be initiated into a group that rightly divides the word, rightly administers the sacraments, and rightly disciplines.

- Secondly one must argue that Protestants have these signs of the visible Church.  Saying they have grace is not enough, because there is grace outside the New Covenant.  Church/Covenant membership is more than just

What results does this argument yield?  If we find option I unacceptable as a position (which most Christians would) then we must move to option II.  But affirming option II transforms the discussion from one about the fact that Protestants have grace to a discussion about the signs of membership in the visible Church.  After all, if we take option II, then there is some set of people who have grace but are not in the Church (called the invisible Church by Protestants generally).  The fact that Protestants have grace therefore does not necessarily imply Church membership if we take option II; it is compatible with option II but not required by it, and so must be argued for based on fulfilling the conditions for covenant membership.  So one may then argue as follows for moving to the subject of the marks of the Church to settle the issue of whether Protestants are in the Church:

Argument for moving to discussing the marks of the Church

1. If one is trying to defend the conclusion that Protestants are in the Church, then the only ways to affirm this is to either assent to option I or option II

2. Option I is untenable because both interpretations a (no new covenant) and b (there’s no grace outside the new covenant) seem false (the first denies Christianity; the second seems implausible because it implies that all people who don’t have the signs of the visible Church are unsaved).

C. Therefore if we are trying to defend the conclusion that Protestants are in the Church, then we must first designate the criteria for being a member of the new covenant, and second argue that Protestants meet these criteria.

By refocusing the discussion, the Catholic can point out to the objector that they need to actually talk about what the Church is.  If the Protestant view of the Church is true, then of course some Protestants will be part of the New Covenant; they will be in the Church because their groups will have the signs of New Covenant membership.  But if the Catholic view is true, then obviously Protestants will not be part of the New Covenant.  They may have grace, salvation, and it may be possible to call many of them Christians in a real but qualified way; but it would not be possible to say they are actually part of the heirarhical institution founded by Jesus.  This is because by definition Protestantism is not the visible heirarchical instituion founded by Jesus (if there is one).  It is a collection of more-or-less affiliated groups of people who identify themselves as Christians and believe that some subset of these groups are legitimate religious organizations permitted to exist by God.

Really what needs to be done, then, is to discuss whether the Catholic view of the Church or the Protestant view of the Church is true.  The fact that there is grace–even much grace–in Protestant groups does not by itself settle the question.  Obviously I wouldn’t agree with the exact way that Cirlot understands things.  For instance, I don’t think that Roman Catholics or Anglicans are the Church.  Nor do I distinguish between two Churches–the visible and the invisible (though honestly I’m not sure I remember if Cirlot used this language).  But the basic form of his argument is obviously salvageable for use by the Orthodox.  So, is the Church a visible heirarchical institution originating from Jesus?  This would actually settle the question of who is in the Church.  But that’s a subject for another time.

Consider:

Unfaith is either total or partial scepticism.
The different faculties have different realms by which they are distinguished. No faculty is to be trusted out of its own realm. ∴Hence no faculty can derive support from another but each must stand upon its own credibility. No one faculty has more inherent credibility than another. ∴Partial scepticism is inconsistent. Total scepticism condemns itself. ∴Faith is the only consistent course.
The argument has the following advantages.

1. It puts faith on the same ground as all certitude.
2. It does not make it so sure that it is no longer faith.
3. By showing that faith is inherent in the very idea of the attainment of truth, it makes its acceptance axiomatic, and thus explains how we were already sure before we had reasoned about Faith.

Also:

2. Faith is not peculiar to or more needed in one province of thought than in another. For every premiss we require faith and nowhere else is there any room for it.
This is overlooked by Kant and others who draw a distinction between knowledge and faith. Wherever there is Faith (properly speaking) there is knowledge.

- from [A Treatise on Metaphysics], Charles Sanders Peirce, in Peirce on Signs, ed. James Hoopes

If I have read Peirce’s statements correctly, it seems that faith is really the ground upon which knowledge stands. This is helpful in solving the problem of infinite regress when trying to find reasons for having justified knowledge claims, and I don’t think it is really a species of foundationalism or particularism. (I could easily be wrong about the latter half of that sentence.)

A possible problem, however, might be that Peirce’s view, as expressed above, makes all knowledge provisional, to some degree. At the very least, it doesn’t seem as though there is any certainty about knowledge. Professing to be uncertain about one’s knowledge does not really make one a “sceptic”, of course, but it does lead one to wonder how we can make knowledge claims at all.

Thoughts?

Can there be truth without a subject to see it?

This would be the final part of my paper on the category of Supererogation in a proper Christian ethical system. Hopefully this final part helps people to see a little bit more what I’ve got in mind by my denial of the supererogatory for a Christian ethical system. Also, for those few who have commented, I will do my best to get to those now that I’ve finished posting this. Thanks for your patience.

A final objection one may offer is what David Lewis used to refer to as the “incredulous stare.” A typical verbal response in this vane would be, “Are you saying that I have to go sell all my belongings and give them to the poor?” My answer is: maybe, but probably not. There is some room for gray in my conception of Christian ethics. Ultimately, it comes down to the concept of stewardship. A person must do their best to determine what God wants her to do most with her limited resources. How are we to know what God wants? That’s an excellent question, but sadly one that would be far beyond the scope of this short essay. There are certainly many things that help: prayer, fasting and other spiritual disciplines, listening to a spiritual father or mother, etc, but I cannot give a way to perfectly answer that question in a way that would satisfy everyone. However, I would leave open the option that God may demand this of a person. One may recall the words of Christ in response to the rich ruler’s question of how to inherit eternal life: “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.” Christ told this man that in order to inherit eternal life, he would have to part with all of his earthly possessions. While not everyone may be actually required to fulfill the act, it seems that all must possess the disposition or virtue necessary to fulfill the act. This is partly why I believe Christian ethics is virtue based, because God may have us use what He’s given us in different ways, but we must be ready to use what He’s given us in any way that He wishes.

So what am I really trying to say about supererogatory actions? Do I really think that every possible good action is required of us? Well, not exactly. I think that one must be prepared to fulfill every good action, which means one must acquire all the virtues. Ultimately, whether or not a specific action is required of an individual has more to do with individual situations than with general rules, hence the difficulty in locating any kind of specific way to delineate between the required and the supererogatory in the ethical teachings of the New Testament.

It seems to me that the category of supererogation is simply not helpful for this type of ethical system. A Christian should not seek to do the bare minimum to satisfy her duty. Rather, she ought to seek to do all the good that she can, and when she has done this, she should still think of herself as only having done her duty. Christ Himself makes this point in the Gospel of Luke. Christ here asks a series of rhetorical questions about how a master interacts with a slave. The series culminates with the question, “Does he thank the servant because he did what he commanded?” Then he gives the application, saying, “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” It seems to me that Christ is here commanding his disciples to have a frame of mind that does not have a category for supererogation. This is the frame of mind we ought to have too as disciples of Christ.

In closing, I would like to mention one of the specific theological implications of this denial of supererogation, namely, as it applies to the notion of merit. If there is no supererogation, then there can be no merit before God. Here my Catholic friends may object as this would mean that they would have to do away with their idea of the “treasury of the merits of the saints,” but this will certainly not move me. The notion of merit in regards to salvation seems to me to be completely misguided. Merit plays no causal role in salvation. So much the worse for Catholicism. The way to salvation is to do one’s best to imitate Christ, recognizing that it is only one’s duty, and to pray for mercy the innumerable times one falls short.

So, one might have noticed that the posting of my paper stopped kinda in the middle and I’ve been generally inactive on the blog for a while (or you might not have noticed at all because you’re just here for the more intelligent posters here). The reason for this is that my hard drive crashed and I lost everything on it and I’ve had endless troubles getting my computer back into full working condition. I was able to recover this paper from email so here goes the next installment of my paper on supererogation.

Now, to deal with some objections. A fairly powerful objection that I must attribute to my fellow undergraduate philosopher Jeremy Mann, has to do with the human practice of gift giving. The objection runs something like this: it would seem that we understand gift-giving to be “by definition,” something that is not compulsory; it cannot be expected. However, if there is no supererogation, than it seems that gift giving is a duty, which would radically change our understanding of gift giving. I grant that this is a fairly powerful objection. However, I think that Scripture demands that we alter our conception of gift giving as Christians. If we refer back to James 4:17, it seems clear that if at any time we know we ought to do something that has moral value, then to not do it is sin. Gift giving would seem to be a kind of supererogatory act of kindness. According to James 4:17 however, we ought to do kind actions whenever the opportunity presents itself before us.

Furthermore, it seems a little odd to think about our normal concept of gift-giving in light of “God’s economy.” In reality, nothing is ours anyways. What gift giving really is for the Christian is a reallocating of God’s resources from one person to another. We are mere stewards over our presumed possessions, with the responsibility to use God’s resources as He would wish. If one thinks that God would wish us to give someone of the bounty He’s entrusted to us, then we are morally obligated to give.

A final observation about gift giving is that it is unclear that what I refer to as our “normal understanding” has always been the understanding of the practice of gift giving. If one picks up classic works such as Homer’s The Odyssey, one might find a very different idea of gift giving indeed. Specifically, one might find an idea in which gifts are expected. Much more could be said in response to this objection (especially in light of the virtues of charity and generosity), but this should be enough to cast doubt on the objection’s validity.

Another concern was brought to my attention by my fellow undergrad Peter Van Elswyk. His worry was that given such a stringent system of ethical demands which no mere mortal would seem to be able to follow, moral responsibility itself would become meaningless. Responsibility would seem to become practically universal if we were required to love and care for all human beings. While I understand the intuition behind this objection, I must confess that I simply disagree that this makes responsibility meaningless. I think it’s true that humans have immeasurably weighty moral responsibility. Every time the opportunity to perform an act of kindness presents itself to the Christian, the Christian ought to act. Is it true only Christ can perfectly bear such a responsibility? Of course. That’s why repentance is a never-ending process. This is why petitions for forgiveness are found in the Lord’s Prayer, because we will always need forgiveness.

Most activities - particularly those we call “useful” - are directed towards some end, some purpose. We might say, therefore, that philosophy should have some definite goal. And many do say this, though not as many agree about in what the end of philosophy consists. Perhaps philosophy has no absolute end, but rather its end is relativized in each of its practitioners. It is not my opinion that this is so.

Recollecting the works of Plato, we glimpse a philosopher who is profoundly interested not only in knowing the Truth about all things - he is desirous of living the good life. There is a sense, for Plato, in which the philosopher starts by finding truths via the dialectic in order to live them out and then ascends to greater truths by living well. (I take Diotima’s ladder in Symposium to be illustrative of this very progression.) Talk is cheap and easily come by, and so Socrates stands throughout the dialogues as the one who lived. He lived in truth, not backing down even when threatened with death. In Crito, for instance, Socrates seems to argue that ceasing to live in truth would be a far worse death than the execution he faced at the hands of his captors. Dying to truth would be the ultimate loss of life.

Some time later, Søren Kierkegaard picks up this very thread. He sees himself standing in an age when everyone claims to be a Christian - but they live falsely. These people are dead, though they have every opportunity to come alive. Kierkegaard, then, allots to himself the task of wonderworker, seeking to raise the dead into truth.

At least in the eyes of the above thinkers, philosophy really is the process of bringing the soul to birth - of bringing it into life. But this does not seem to be entirely homogenous with philosophy as we see it today. Philosophers seem to be concerned with things as far removed from living “as the east is from the west”. How, after all, do the infinite variations on abstract epistemological and ontological theories affect our daily life? If we kept them in the foreground of our minds at all times, surely we would become insane!

I return, therefore, to Diotima’s ladder. If one is motivated by love, he seeks out the truth lovingly. He who loves Truth - he who is a lover of Wisdom - also loves Good and Beauty. This love is a comprehending movement of the soul, one which binds the soul to the thing it loves, and so the lover of Truth is united with Truth, the lover of Good is made one with Good, the lover of Beauty is enmeshed with Beauty. “They become one flesh.” Such a person cannot help but live truly. Such a person is a philosopher.

Lady Philosophy, then, woos us so that we may learn to love. She directs us so that we may learn what to love. It is her end, therefore - by the Divine Love who orders all the angels, who moves the sun and other stars - to lead us to life with God.

It has recently occurred to me that our knowledge of the past is grounded in an extremely fuzzy manner. I see two possible problems:

1) As far as I can tell, historians typically consult evidential articles such as “source” documents and artifacts in an effort to reconstruct the historical events which gave rise to their production. This approach might be characterized as moving from effects to causes by inference. However, this kind of reasoning becomes questionable when considering the Humean critique of induction. If Hume was right, an empirical basis to historical knowledge becomes a quicksand into which the whole edifice of history is swallowed. We cannot know it.

2) Another possible problem for the study of history is derived from considering the ontological status of that which was. The past was, it used to be - it is no more. To borrow the image of the Moirae, the future has been gathered up, woven into the present, and unwoven into the past. No longer does the past have its own existence. Add to this the intuition that knowledge is of things that exist.[1] If I am correct in the above assertions, then historical knowledge is problematic once again. There is, after all, nothing to know.

I think there is a way to resolve both problems, but I’d prefer to hear reactions to these thoughts.

_______________________
[1] I’m sure this is a controversial claim. My intuition, however, is that there cannot be knowledge of things that do not have being, since, in such a case, there is nothing about which to have knowledge.