On the Limitations of Science

All objects and phenomena that can be investigated by science are deterministic. Things like psychology, free will, ethical theories, and matters concerning faith are not deterministic, and hence they cannot be investigated by using the scientific method.

Marx's Disdain for Philosophy

Marx had a disdain for philosophy. He believed that when the socialist revolution was successful, the rule of philosophy would come to an end. In The Holy Family, written by Marx and Engels in 1845, Hegel is called a “master wizard” and his metaphysics is described as a “drunken speculation.” In the middle of the nineteenth century, Marx was becoming disenchanted with Feuerbach, whom he had earlier eulogized as a great materialist. Feuerbach was himself anti-philosophy. Feuerbach has said, “My philosophy is no philosophy.” But for Marx, Feuerbach’s rejection of philosophy did not go far enough. He rejected Feuerbach as a man who never learned to see “without the eyes — which is to say the eye-glasses — of the philosopher.”

Private Vices, Public Benefits

The ancient philosophers believed that only virtuous people can build a good society. If Plato and Aristotle were asked whether selfish and greedy men could create a good society, they would have immediately said, “there is no chance.” In the modern age, some philosophers realized that people with vices (the greedy, ruthless, and selfish kind of people) are better at building a good society than those who possess the so-called classical virtues. The virtue of greed, ruthlessness, and selfishness was first explained by Bernard Mandeville, who coined the famous slogan “Private Vices, Public Benefits,” in his The Fable of the Bees, published as a poem in 1705 and as a book in 1714. Mandeville’s ideas have inspired the works of David Hume, Adam Smith, and a few other free market oriented thinkers of the 18th century.

On Philosophers Who Make History

The philosophies of the past, which provoked a rebellion against the intellectual establishment of their time, have left a mark on mankind. The rebellious philosophers have made history, while the conformist philosophers have been quickly forgotten. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were the rebels in Ancient Greece. Socrates was forced by the Athenians to commit suicide by drinking hemlock after he was convicted by a court for inciting a rebellion against the Athenian establishment. Plato and Aristotle narrowly missed having a “Socratic treatment” from angry Athenians on several occasions in their lifetime. The other important philosophers who continue to be relevant till today — Cicero, Seneca, Boethius, Aquinas, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Kant, and others — too have proposed radical ideas which questioned the knowledge of their time. The philosophies which are provocative have a longer lifespan than the philosophies which are conformist.

The Lesson of Protagoras: Virtue Cannot be Taught

In the Platonic dialogue Protagoras, Socrates inquires from the Sophist teacher Protagoras about the best way of educating his young friend Hippocrates. He asks: Where should Hippocrates be schooled? Protagoras suggests that if Hippocrates wants to be a sculptor he should study at Phidias; if he wishes to be a physician, the Aesculapian school is an option. Then Socrates asks, in what subject will Hippocrates become an expert if he becomes a pupil of Protagoras? To this, Protagoras answers, he will teach Hippocrates to become a better man. Socrates asks, in what way will you make him better? Protagoras says that he teaches his students virtue or moral excellence. Socrates then asks him to clarify how virtue is teachable? The rest of the Dialogue explores the nature, scope, and teachability of virtue.

The Dialogue ends without Socrates and Protagoras being able to discover the answers to the fundamental questions concerning virtue: What is virtue? Is virtue many things or one thing? Are qualities like piety, courage, temperance, and justice separate virtues or parts of virtue as a whole—this is an important question because if they are separate then it is possible for a man to be temperate while being unjust. Protagoras is unable to provide convincing answers to these questions. Socrates then asks, can virtue be taught? In the discussion between Socrates and Protagoras, it comes out that virtue cannot be taught. Virtue is linked to a man’s tastes, desires, character, and to the social environment in which he lives—a teacher may teach his pupil some of the principles of virtue, but he can't teach him how he should lead his life. The choices that a man makes will be based on his character and his situation in life. Also, there are people whose souls are corrupted—they cannot be trained into becoming morally better.

Socrates is of the view that there is no point in teaching virtue, because virtue cannot be taught. What the teachers of virtue provide is a sort of training, like the training that a carpenter gets. A virtuous person is virtuous in every context, for him the principles of virtue are universally applicable, and this is a quality that cannot be taught. We can identify the specific instances of virtue, but we can't define the universal principles of virtue, and what we can’t define, we can’t teach.

The Army of Little Socrates

An army of hundreds of Little Socrates is marching down the road in a tight formation threatening to shoot anyone in sight with their guns which are loaded with dialectical arguments.

A Philosophy of Reason is a Philosophy of Ignorance

When a philosophy asserts that it’s the “philosophy of reason,” it reveals its ignorance of the role that reason plays in the development of knowledge. The last two words in the phrase “philosophy of reason” are superfluous, because every philosophy has to be a philosophy of reason. Every intellectual effort, rational or irrational, must entail the use of reason. Can you develop a nihilistic system of thought without using reason? Can you come up with a doctrine that denies the existence of the material world without using reason? Even to reject the role that reason plays in the development of knowledge you need reason. Even to lie you must use reason.

On the Nyaya Account of Doubt

In the Nyaya system, doubt is seen as the beginning of philosophy. When man is confronted with doubts which seem unresolvable, then he may resort to philosophy to develop a better understanding of the problem. In his book The Nyaya Theory of Knowledge, Satischandra Chatterjee offers the following perspective on the Nyaya account of doubt:

"Doubt is not valid knowledge (prama). It may sometimes have the character of presentation (anubhava) of an object. But it has neither the mark of being an assured definite cognition (asamdigdha) nor that of a true correspondence with the object (yathartha), and so, does not lead to successful activity. In doubt the oscillation of thought between different ideas has no objective counterpart in the real. Nevertheless doubt is not error (viparyyaya). Doubt as a form of cognition, is neither true nor false. It carries with it no definite assertion of any character with regard to Its object. It makes no claim to be a true judgment of the object and so the question of its falsity or contradiction does not arise. The value of doubt lies in its being a great impetus to study and investigation. It is the starting-point of a critical knowledge of objects. In this sense it may be said to be the beginning of philosophy." (Page 32)

Chatterjee goes on to note that the Nyaya account holds that doubt is different from both belief and disbelief. “It neither affirms or denies anything, but only raises a problem for thought. As such, doubt should also be distinguished from ‘the mere absence of belief.’ There is absence of belief even when we do not think of anything at all. In doubt, however, we think of two or more alternatives in regard to the same thing.” (Page 32-33)

The Theory of Reason is a Vicious Circle

Man derives his knowledge through reason but the theory of reason is a vicious circle, since the knowledge that ‘knowledge is acquired through reason’ comes through the application of reason. In other words, the knowledge that reason is supreme in all matters related to the process by which a man acquires knowledge is a claim made by reason itself. If you have to critique the knowledge that someone claims to have derived through his reason, then to which mental faculty can you appeal? You have to appeal to reason, as there is no higher judge. But can we trust the critique of a mental instrument that has been conducted by that instrument itself?

On the Rise of Atheistic Empires

The term “atheist” is derived from the Greek term “atheistos,” which refers to one who denies the traditional religion of the Athenian establishment. In Ancient Athens denying the existence of the gods was a punishable offense. The Athenians forced Socrates to commit suicide because they believed that he was an atheistos, but Socrates was not an atheist in the modern sense—in the Platonic Dialogues, he does not deny the existence of supernatural entities.

The 18th century Enlightenment philosophes can be seen as the first major propagandizers of modern atheism—disgusted by the corruption of the religious institutions, they made an intellectual and political case for a godless society. They were convinced that society can be liberated through an atheistic revolution. In his book The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World, Alister McGarth notes that the fall of the Bastille in 1789 marked the rise of the modern atheism, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 led to the dawning of the realization that an atheistic nation is, after all, uninhabitable:

"The remarkable rise and subsequent decline of atheism is framed by two pivotal events, separated by precisely two hundred years: the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and that of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Two brutal physical structures, each of which served as a symbol of a worldview, were destroyed, to popular acclaim… The fall of the Bastille became a symbol of the viability and creativity of a godless world, just as the fall of the Berlin Wall later symbolized a growing recognition of the uninhabitability of such a place. They mark neither the beginning nor the end of atheism, simply providing the historian with convenient boundary posts for a discussion of its growth, flowering, and gradual decay."

The French Revolution was the first atheistic revolution and the Soviet revolution was the second. The political wing of atheism achieved great success, and between 1950 and 1990 almost half of the world’s population was living under atheistic regimes.

Free Nation Versus Totalitarian Nation

Freedom and good culture are hard to teach, but statism and bad culture are easy to learn. A free nation that uses its financial and military power to bring democracy and freedom to a totalitarian nation will lose its own democracy and freedom. In a conflict between a free nation and a totalitarian nation, the first wins the military victory and the second wins the ideological victory. People in totalitarian nations have an immense devotion to their culture—instead of learning anything from the free nation, they will succeed in teaching it a whole lot of their own ideas.

Freedom is Not a Universal Solution

Freedom is not a panacea. A few nations are energized by freedom but most are apathetic to it. There are nations where people are incapable of taking charge of their own life; they are habituated to being told what they must do for earning their bare necessities. If there is no one around to give orders, they feel cheated of their way of life. The idea of freedom is of importance in the nations which enjoy a relatively high standard of living and where people have become addicted to luxuries. In places where luxuries are not available, people have no conception of a better life, and they don’t care about freedom.

Avogadro Number and Philosophy

Galaxy M81

There are two ways by which we can approach philosophy: the big picture approach and the deep insight approach. The big picture approach takes a holistic view of philosophy—it seeks to draw broad inferences on man’s nature and his place in the universe. The deep insight approach entails a dive into the philosophical treatises to conduct an examination of the philosophical arguments.

To develop a philosophical view of the world it is necessary to have a mixture of both the approaches—a holistic view of philosophy should go hand in hand with the knowledge of the arguments on which the philosophy is built.

The big picture approach and the deep insight approach are also relevant to the world of science. You can look at the universe as a whole, or you can approach it through the smallest entities (the atoms) from which everything in the universe is constituted. One of the big numbers that we encounter while taking the universe as a whole approach is the age of the universe—scientists believe that the universe is around 15 billion years old or 15 X 10⁹ years old. In approaching the universe through the atoms, we encounter the  Avogadro Number which relates to the number of atoms in one mole (one gram) of an element; by definition, it is exactly 6.02214076×10²³.

The Avogadro Number (6.02214076×10²³) is much greater than the age of the universe (15 X 10⁹ years). Even if we calculate the age of the universe in days, minutes, or even in seconds, we get numbers that are much smaller than the  Avogadro Number. What does this tell us? The possibilities for knowledge when we conduct an examination of the smallest of the small things is as great as the possibilities that are there when we study the universe as a whole. In philosophy the examination of the basic arguments can never end, because the possibilities for finding new implications of these arguments is endless, and the discovery of new answers always leads to the rise of several new questions.

Modern Man is Anti-Darwinian

The modern man is the Darwinian’s worst nightmare. The Darwinian theory preaches that all forms of life are practical and serious—that the actions of all creatures are motivated by the overarching aim of ensuring the survival of their species. But the modern man is impractical and unserious—he is extravagant and wasteful. To him, the luxuries are more necessary than the necessities. His focus is on movies, music, dancing, painting, fashionable clothes, bigger house, and faster vehicles. Sex for him is an end in itself; procreation, or survival of his species, is the least of his concern. Contraception and termination of unwanted pregnancies is a common feature of the modern way of life—the modern man is the only creature that tries to hinder procreation. He does not mind putting his life at risk by his unhealthy eating and drinking habits. He is playful, superfluous, and frivolous. He is often lazy and avoids exercise. Modern man’s way of life is not in conformity with Darwinian logic. If the Darwinian theory of evolution is correct, then what is the future of an impractical, unserious, extravagant, and wasteful creature like modern man?

Voices of Doom, Signals of Decline

When a nation’s discourse becomes consumed by the scale of impending disasters and the austerities required to avert them, it is a sure sign that the nation has lost faith in itself. Such a society ceases to imagine triumph; it prepares instead for managed decline. The language of sacrifice, when unaccompanied by the vision of renewal, signals not resilience but resignation.

A flourishing nation is, above all, a confident one. Its public imagination is animated not by fear, but by possibility. It speaks not of collapse, but of creation—of the achievements its people will forge, the frontiers they will cross, and the obstacles they will overcome with skill and determination. Optimism, in this sense, is not naïveté; it is civilizational vitality. Without it, decline becomes not merely possible, but inevitable.

The Origin of Pseudo-Problems

The problems for which there are no solutions play a far greater role in determining the fate of a nation, than the problems for which there are solutions. The intellectuals and politicians are not interested in dealing with the problems for which the solutions are readily available; they understand that political power comes from squandering their nation’s resources on problems for which there are no solutions. If such intractable problems do not exist, then they do their best to create imaginary ones. This is the root cause of all the pseudo-problems that most modern nations are facing.

On The Philosophy and Science of Atoms

Democritus of Abdera (460 BC — 370 BC) was the first thinker to explain the nature of the universe by noting that everything is composed from constantly moving and unchangeable atoms of different sizes and shapes. He is known to have said, “The only existing things are atoms and empty space; all else is mere opinion.” His atomic theory, however, is not an explanation of the atomic structure of matter in the sense of modern science. His observations were purely philosophical, his aim was to articulate a materialistic doctrine. His atomic theory did not become widely accepted in Ancient Greece; only one school, that of Epicurus, adopted it. Aristotle’s theory that everything in the universe is made out of four elements of fire, earth, air, and water gained more popularity. By the end of the Ancient Roman Empire, Democritus’s theory was forgotten, while Aristotle’s theory remained the accepted explanation for everything in the universe for more than 2000 years.

In the 17th century, the concept of atoms was used by Robert Boyle in his work on chemistry, and by Newton in his work on optics, but the first “scientific” effort to investigate the existence and nature of atoms was made in the 18th century by the French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, who was trying to find out why things burn. During the course of his experiments, Lavoisier discovered several chemical substances (elements) which cannot be separated into other chemical substances and he also came to know that burning is a chemical reaction in which oxygen from the air gets combined to other elements. Building on Lavoisier’s work, John Dalton in the early part of the 19th century noted that all matter in the universe is made out of atoms, which are themselves divisible, and that all atoms in every element are identical and every element has different kinds of atoms.

In 1897, J J Thompson discovered that the atoms have negatively charged electrons and well as something with a positive charge. He imagined an atom to be like a watermelon in which the positive charge is spread across a large sphere and the small electrons carrying negative charge are embedded in the body of the sphere. Ernest Rutherford is responsible for the picture that most people have of atoms—in 1911, he proposed for the atom a structure like the Solar System in which the positive charge remains stationary in the middle while the electrons with negative charge rotate around the positive charge. But Rutherford’s idea of the structure of the atom, like Thompson’s idea, is incorrect. The atom is not shaped like a solar system and the electrons are not moving around the positive charge. Modern scientists believe that the electrons and the positive charge in the atoms are stationary.

On Four Kinds of Tyrants

The intellectual sees his nation as a university with himself as the university president; the artist sees his nation as an asylum, with himself as the asylum’s chief doctor; the politician sees his nation as a concentration camp with himself as the camp’s commander; the crony capitalist sees his nation as a monopoly with himself as the monopoly’s CEO.

The irony is that all four—society as a university, society as an asylum, society as a concentration camp, society as a monopoly—are tyrannies.

They think that only they can maintain the social, cultural, and economic standards—only they can take care of everyone. They look at themselves as their nation’s keeper, but they are everyone’s jail-keeper. A nation that does not know how to prevent its intellectuals, artists, politicians, and businessmen from forming a clique against the masses is doomed.

On Intellectuals and the Nation

On the whole, who has a better opinion of mankind—the intellectuals or the normal people? Is an intellectual less of a barbarian than a man with less or no education? The intellectuals talk about the importance of higher education, but there is little evidence to show that higher education can make a man educated or enable him to develop empathy for mankind. The greatest mistakes in any area are mostly made by the intellectuals who are convinced that they possess a great theory—they ignore the fact that they have very little practical experience.

The intellectuals show a consistent tendency to be fooled by pseudo-scientific theories such as global warming, Ozone depletion, etc. They are masters in the art of turning the urgent problems into taboos and focusing their nation’s attention on all sorts of trivialities and non-problems. When intellectuals take charge, they usually enshrine artists of their own calibre and this leads to a steep downfall in the quality of art. Some of the worst political and economic disasters of the last 100 years have happened in nations where a significant part of the population is educated—and the architects of the disasters are always the intellectuals.

From the history of Ancient Rome, and other past civilizations, it is possible to draw the inference that higher the number of intellectuals, the weaker a nation becomes culturally and politically.

On The Nature of Philosophy and Science

Philosophy will not give you definite truths. When the definite truth about anything becomes possible, the subject moves out of the domain of philosophy and becomes a science. The aim of philosophy is limited to developing a systemic view of the knowledge that we derive from the sciences and analyzing the nature of our beliefs regarding morality, limitations of knowledge, and the nature of the universe and our place in it.

In the time of Plato and Aristotle, geometry, astronomy, and biology were included in philosophy. Mathematics was included in philosophy till the time of Newton—his book was called Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy). The study of atoms was in the domain of philosophy up to the end of the 19th century, and so was the study of mind and human psychology. Some subjects like Quantum Mechanics and the Darwinian Theory of Evolution are too nebulous to involve empirical testing and span across the domains of philosophy and science.

All subjects have a beginning in philosophy and they move into the domain of science when it becomes possible to find definite truths in them.

Kant on Pure Intuitions and Pure Categories of Understanding

Immanuel Kant accepts David Hume’s view that all knowledge arises from experience, but he goes on to note that it is wrong to say that because our knowledge arises from experience, it is grounded in experience. In his theory of causal concepts, Hume posits that we know that X is the cause of Y when from our experience we see that X and Y are together. In Kant’s philosophy, the cognitive holdings that are not the result of experience, or are non-empirical, are referred to as “pure.”

In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant conducts a critical examination of the forms of rationality that are non-empirical (or not based on experience) and whose purpose is to create the framework in which all experience can become possible. Kant notes that without the intuitions of “time” and “space” experience is not possible. From here he goes on to develop the concept of pure intuitions of “time” and “space.” In Kantian terminology, an intuition is a necessary precondition for any form of experiential knowledge to develop. It would be illogical to say that this precondition is developed after the experience—it has to be prior to all experience (Kant calls it a priori), or there will be no experience.

To prove that knowledge can be said to arise out of experience but may not be grounded in experience, Kant offers a view of the framework of all knowledge (in his “Analytic of Concepts”). He says that every instance of knowledge involves a judgement which is formed within a universal categorical framework that includes entities that could not have come from experience. He offers twelve pure concepts, or “Pure Categories of the Understanding,” which are divided into four categories of three. He says that these categories of understanding could not have come from experience and would admit no exceptions. The categories are:

Quantity: Unity, Plurality, Totality

Quality: Reality, Negation, Limitation

Relation: Inherence and Subsistence, Causality and Dependence, Community

Modality: Possibility, Existence, Necessity

According to Kant, these categories are the necessary conditions for knowledge of anything in the universe. He sees the pure intuitions as the necessary forms of experience, and the pure categories as the necessary forms of knowledge.

On Dogmatic Philosophical Movements

The dogmatic philosophical movements are often lacking in good manners because they see every disagreement and incorrect statement as a sign of a moral failing. Here’s a perspective from Eric Hoffer (from an entry in his diary on June 16, 1958):

Good manners are inconceivable without a degree of objectivity, and the give and take of compromise. He who clings with all his might to an absolute truth fears compromise more than the devil. He throttles the soft amenities which would dovetail him with others, and blur his uncompromising stance. Thus it happens that when a faith loses its potency rudeness often serves as a substitute. 

There is nothing worse than a philosophical movement that is motivated by petty moralism and expects total conformity with its ideas.

On The Narcissistic Libertarians

When you love someone you do not notice her or his imperfections, and this applies to self-love or narcissism too. The libertarians are narcissistic. They are in love with their own good looks, good mind, and good theories. That is why they fail to notice the imperfections in their attitude and work. 

They want to make history, but they have no sense of history. They want to transform culture, but they have no sense of culture. They want to attain political power, but their understanding of the political situation is abysmal. They claim to stand for liberty, but most libertarian groups are cultist. They clamor for reform, but they don’t understand that the result of reform is often the opposite of what the reformers had in mind. They won’t accept that there are political and cultural problems for which there are no solutions. 

The only area in which the work of some libertarians can be taken seriously is economic theory, but the world does not move by economics alone.

From Plato to Plotinus

Plotinus is probably the most important philosopher in the 700-year period between Aristotle and Augustine of Hippo. Much of what we know about him comes from the biography The Life of Plotinus, written by his disciple Porphyry, who was a major philosopher in his own right. We know that Plotinus was born in Lycopolis, Egypt, in A.D. 205, but it is not clear if he was a Greek or a member of a Hellenized Egyptian family. Plotinus decided to become a philosopher in his 28th year—what he used to do before that is not known. His quest for philosophical knowledge brought him to Alexandria where he studied under a teacher called Ammonius Saccas for eleven years. Little is known about Ammonius own philosophical views, but he encouraged Plotinus to study Plato. In 243, Plotinus, aspiring to study Persian and Indian philosophy, attached himself to the expedition of Emperor Gordian III to Persia. But when the expedition got aborted, with the assassination of Gordian by his troops, Plotinus abandoned his plans and established himself in Rome in 245, where he lived till his death in 270 or 271. According to Porphyry, for ten years Plotinus didn’t write anything—he devoted himself to lecturing on the philosophy that he had learned from his master Ammonius. After that he began setting down his thoughts in a series of "treatises" of various lengths and complexity. Porphyry arranged Plotinus’s treatises into six groups of nine each—which got the title Enneads, because in Greek “enneads” means nine. Porphyry offers one astonishing information about Plotinus—he reveals that due to  poor eyesight, Plotinus never revised anything he wrote. Plotinus thought of himself as a disciple of Plato. Today he is regarded as the founder of "Neoplatonism," but he would have preferred the label "Platonism" for his work. His philosophy was devoted to responding to Plato's critics (this includes Aristotle, the Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics, and various lesser figures) and elucidating the wisdom of Plato.

Intellectuals and Politicians Love Bad Ideas

Intellectuals and politicians have one thing in common—they love bad ideas. The more unworkable the idea, the greater is their infatuation with it. They examine other nations to learn about the ideas that have led to the worst catastrophes, and they eagerly bring these failed ideas to their own nation. There can be two reasons for their love affair with bad ideas: first, they think that they are capable of making the bad ideas, which have failed multiple times in different parts of the world, work; second, they harbor a sinister desire for destroying the economy and culture of their own country.

David Stove on Charles Darwin

Those who believe in Darwinian theory—I mean, really believe in it—should read David Stove’s Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution, which is an attack on certain aspects of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theory. Stove is an atheist—which means he does not have a religious agenda in attacking Darwin. In the book's Preface, he writes: “This is an anti-Darwinism book. It is written both against the Darwinism of Darwin and his 19th century disciples, and against the Darwinism of such influential 20th century Darwinians as G.C. Williams and W.D. Hamilton and their disciples. My object is to show that Darwinism is not true: not true, at any rate, of our species. If it is true, or near enough true, of sponges, snakes, flies, or whatever, I do not mind that. What I do mind is, its being supposed to be true of man.”

On Capitalist Desire and Socialist Hope

People in capitalist countries are filled with desire and when their desires are not fulfilled, they feel frustrated. People in socialist countries are filled with hope and when their hopes do not materialize, they feel enraged. But those in capitalist countries subconsciously know that their desires are unquenchable, and those in socialist countries subconsciously know that their hopes are never going to be fulfilled. But they keep desiring and feeling frustrated, and hoping and feeling enraged, because that is what their respective cultures have programmed them to do.

Fibonacci: Revolution by 10 Numerals

Statue of Fibonacci (1863)

What Leonardo Pisano, who is better known as Fibonacci, did in the thirteenth century with the publication of Liber Abbaci (Book of Calculation) was every bit as revolutionary for the field of mathematics as the revolution that Copernicus brought in the field of astronomy. Pisano’s book introduced the system of 10 numerals to the masses— it took computing from a small group of mathematicians, and made it available to and usable by almost everyone.

When Pisano’s father moved from Pisa to the North African port of Bugia (now in Algeria), in around 1185, to serve as a trade representative and customs official, he took his son with him. It was in Bugia that Pisano mastered the Hindu system of 10 numerals and realized that it was far superior to the system of Roman numerals. Much of what we know about Pisano comes from a small biographical paragraph that he wrote for the 1228 edition of the Liber Abbaci (the book’s first edition was published in 1202).

In his 1973 essay, “The Autobiography of Leonardo Pisano,” Richard E. Grimm provides a literal translation of the autobiographical paragraph:

After my father's appointment by his homeland as state official in the customs house of Bugia for the Pisan merchants who thronged to it, he took charge; and, in view of its future usefulness and convenience, had me in my boyhood come to him and there wanted me to devote myself to and be instructed in the study of calculation for some days. There, following my introduction, as a consequence of marvelous instruction in the art, to the nine digits of the Hindus, the knowledge of the art very much appealed to me before all others, and for it I realized that all its aspects were studied in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence, with their varying methods; and at these places thereafter, while on business, I pursued my study in depth and learned the give-and-take of disputation. But all this even, and the algorism, as well as the art of Pythagoras I considered as almost a mistake in respect to the method of the Hindus. Therefore, embracing more stringently that method of the Hindus, and taking stricter pains in its study, while adding certain things from my own understanding and inserting also certain things from the niceties of Euclid’s geometric art, I have striven to compose this book in its entirety as understandably as I could, dividing it into fifteen chapters. Almost everything which I have introduced I have displayed with exact proof, in order that those further seeking this knowledge, with its pre-eminent method, might be instructed, and further, in order that the Latin people might not be discovered to be without it, as they have been up to now. If I have perchance omitted anything more or less proper or necessary, I beg indulgence, since there is no one who is blameless and utterly provident in all things.

Before the thirteenth century, some mathematicians in Europe were aware of the system of 10 numerals; they were using it for their personal calculations. But the population in Europe was dependent on the Roman numerals which were difficult to use. Pisano’s Liber Abbaci made the masses aware that, with the 10 numerals, they could conduct their calculations with ease. The traders of Europe became the first supporters of the system of 10 numerals—they adopted these numerals to keep record of their commercial activity.

The Myth of Original Philosophy

Philosophy is like oxygen in the sense that we can use philosophy and oxygen without knowing that both exist. Human beings have been taking actions that have philosophical implications for more than 70,000 years, but they became aware of the domain of philosophy in the last 2500 years, and we became aware of the existence of oxygen in the last 250 years. There are no original ideas in philosophy, because ideas predate philosophy— they are universal and timeless. But there can be original arguments. A philosopher, who comes up with arguments for or against certain philosophical positions, exists in a particular spatio-temporal domain and his arguments can be judged as original or unoriginal in light of spatio-temporal concerns that have motivated his work.

On the First Greek Treatise on Philosophy

Anaximander’s Concerning Nature is regarded as the first treatise on philosophy by a Greek author. The book is lost—a mere dozen words from it have survived, but the book might have been read by Plato and Aristotle and their successors. It seems likely that the book was available in the library of Lyceum during the time of Aristotle and his successor Theophrastus. According to some accounts, in second century BCE, Apollodorus of Athens had discovered a copy of Anaximander’s Concerning Nature, probably in the famous library of Alexandria. In his book The Presocratic Philosophers, Jonathan Barnes comments on the nature and scope of Anaximander’s book:

"It was vast: there was a cosmogony, or account of the original formation of the universe; a history of the earth and the heavenly bodies; an account of the development of living organisms; descriptions of natural phenomena of every sort, and infant studies of astronomy, meteorology and biology; and a geography illustrated by a celebrated mappa mundi. Nature, phusis, embraces every object of experience and every subject of rational inquiry except the productions of human contrivance; and the Presocratic systems of thought were generally spoken of as accounts Concerning Nature (Peri Phuseôs). An account concerning nature would begin with cosmogony, and proceed to a description of the celestial universe. It would investigate the development of the earth, of terrestrial life, and of the human animal; it would describe the clouds, the rains, and the winds, the rocky structure of the land, and the salt sea. It would rise from the inorganic to the organic, treating of topics botanical and zoological; it would look at the typology of species and the anatomy of individuals. It would turn to the mind, and study the psychology of sensation and action; and it would ask about the extent and the nature of human knowledge, and about the proper place of man in the natural world. An account Peri Phuseôs would, in brief, encompass all science and all philosophy.

"Thales, we may imagine, first indicated that vast field of intellectual endeavour. Anaximander was the first to map it out; and his chart, with a few additions and modifications, determined the range and aspirations of almost all subsequent thought. Anaximenes, Xenophanes, and even Heraclitus; Empedocles and Anaxagoras and the Atomists: all worked and wrote in the grand tradition of Anaximander: other men are specialists, their specialism was omniscience."

The fragment from Anaximander’s book, consisting of about a dozen words, that has come down to us, in a text by the Aristotelian scholar Simplicius, who came in the sixth century AD, is probably one of the most discussed phrases in the history of philosophy.

Action Precedes Theory

Morality precedes moral theory; knowledge precedes theory of epistemology; the idea that our senses do not lie, and that the world is real, precedes theory of metaphysics; language precedes theory of grammar; communal living precedes theory of politics; creation of tools precedes theory of physics; agriculture and taming of animals precede theory of biology; creation of oils, chemicals, and metal alloys precede theory of chemistry; the art of counting and making basic calculations precede theory of mathematics; the arts of hunting and fighting the enemies of one’s tribe precede military theory; cave arts and tribal decorations precede theory of aesthetics; capitalism precedes theory of economics. Human beings have been using all kinds of ideas, arts, skills, tools, and knowledge for tens of thousands of years. Some of mankind's greatest innovations happened between 15000 to 70000 years ago. We started developing theories fairly recently, in the last 2500 years.

Anaximander and the Theory of Evolution

In chapter 5, "Anaximander of Miletus," of his book Philosophy Before Socrates, Richard D. McKirahan suggests in a couple of paragraphs that the presocratic philosopher Anaximander can be seen as the father of the theory of evolution:

Particularly striking is Anaximander’s recognition and solution of a problem arising from the helplessness of human infants. The first humans could not have come into this world as babies or they would have died before reaching an age at which they could propagate the race. How, then, did they come into being? This “first generation problem” can be answered by positing a god who creates adult humans or by asserting that the world and the human race have always been in existence. However, both these solutions conflict with basic features of Anaximander’s system. Accordingly he takes an original and ingenious approach, having the first humans nurture in other animals until self-sustaining.  

For his claims that animals arose in the sea before they emerged to live on dry land and that they developed from fish, and for recognizing the need for a different original form for humans and the difficulties of adapting to different habitats (perhaps implicit in the short lives of the animals who first moved onto dry land), Anaximander is sometimes called the father of evolution. This interpretation is wrong, however, since he says nothing about the evolution of species. His problem of how to account for the first generation of each kind of animal, how to get each kind of animal established once and for all, is different from Darwin’s. Moreover, he makes not mention of such Darwinian mechanisms as natural selection. 

Anaximander was the student of Thales and the teacher of Anaximenes—it is possible that Pythagoras too was one of his students. Anaximander’s comprehensive and systematic ideas had a seminal impact on the Greek thinkers (including Plato and Aristotle) who followed him. In Raphael’s painting The School of Athens, Anaximander is represented leaning towards Pythagoras on his left.

Philosophy and Decline of Civilizations

When a nation is on the ascendent, it makes rapid progress in science—and when a nation is on the decline, it makes rapid progress in philosophy. The rise of philosophers (even the ones who claim to stand for reason, liberty, and individualism) is never the herald of a nation’s success; it's an indication of its failure. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote his classic work Democracy in America as a report on his tour in America between 1831 and 1835. In this book, he observes: “I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States.” But I think that one of the reasons for which America was doing well at the time of Tocqueville’s visit was because the Americans were paying less attention to philosophy. After 1910, the intellectuals managed to gain a stranglehold on American culture, and the country started paying more and more attention to philosophy—and as a result of that its economy and culture started declining. Such parallels between philosophy and the decline of a nation can also be observed in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Roman Empire, and several other cultures. 

Synthesis or Revolution

When “thesis” and “antithesis” collide, then there is either a “synthesis” or a “revolution”. The collision can happen in any area of activity. If it happens in the sphere of culture and politics, then the philosophers and politicians, who want the status quo to continue, have to work out a synthesis between the thesis and antithesis. They have to achieve a synthesis between the old holy cause and the new holy cause. There will always be philosophers and politicians who will want a total transformation. They might be convinced that a better life was possible—or they could be alienated from their society. Such philosophers and politicians will not be patient and tolerant. They will try to ignite a revolution which will grant them the power to shape the future.

On Two Closed Systems: Marxism and Objectivism

Vladimir Lenin made Marxism a closed system in 1909: In his theoretical work Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Lenin writes, “You cannot eliminate even one basic assumption, on substantial part of this philosophy of Marxism (it is as if it were a solid block of steel) without abandoning objective truth, without falling into the arms of the bourgeois-reactionary falsehood.” Leonard Peikoff made Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism a closed system in 1989: In his article, “Fact and Value,” Peikoff writes, “Objectivism holds that every truth is an absolute, and that a proper philosophy is an integrated whole, any change in any element of which would destroy the entire system.” It is an irony that Lenin, a Marxist and communist, and Peikoff, a Randian individualist and free marketer, have used similar arguments for imposing a closed system on their philosophy.

Plato and Aristotle Chained Inside The Platonic Cave

Question: If Plato and Aristotle are dragged inside the Platonic Cave (The Allegory of the Cave) and chained with other prisoners so that they cannot turn their head and can see only the reflections which appear on the wall of the cave, then what kind of philosophy will they develop?

Answer: If Plato and Aristotle are in such a situation, their philosophy will be uninspiring like the philosophy of most modern philosophers who claim to stand for reason and liberty. Plato and Aristotle might still philosophize, but their ideas will consist of their own rationalizations because, being trapped inside the Platonic Cave, they will be out of touch with reality.

My Point: Most modern philosophers who talk about reason and liberty are incapable of developing a good philosophy. They ignore what is going on in the world and develop their thoughts through their own rationalizations. Their understanding of human psychology is limited. Their mind is trapped inside the Platonic Cave of their own making.

Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis

The triad “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis” is attributed to Hegel,  even though he does not mention it in his works. Some commentators have attributed this triad to Fichte, but they don’t point out the work where Fichte has written about it. Marx and Engels have used the triad in their materialistic conception of history—for instance, in Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy. The Marxist version of the triad is an outcome of their own understanding of the philosophy of Hegel and Fichte. 

The origin of the triad can be traced to Ancient Greece—to the Classical Philosophy of Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle. The Platonic dialogues follow a dialectical form: An argument (thesis) is followed by a counterargument (antithesis). Either the counterargument cancels out the argument or it leads to the development of a position which consists of a “synthesis” of the opposing arguments and represents an improvement in the position taken by the argument and the counterargument. Aristotle has said that rhetoric is a counterpart of dialectics.

Since Plato and Aristotle have some fundamental disagreements, Platonism can be seen as the thesis and Aristotelianism as the antithesis. The process of developing a synthesis between Platonism and Aristotelianism began with the Hellenistic Neo-Platonists and the philosophers in Ancient Rome. Thomas Aquinas too was attempting to develop a synthesis. Thomistic philosophy is not Aristotelian—it is an attempt to resolve the tension between the works of Plato and Aristotle.

Galileo Versus Aristotle

In my post, “On The Anti-Aristotelianism of the Renaissance,” I talk about the anti-Aristotelianism of Erasmus, Martin Luther, and Francis Bacon. The anti-Aristotelianism that was sweeping Europe, in the time of the Renaissance, touched a new high with the publication in 1632 of Galileo Galilei’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which is written in the form of a Platonic dialogue for debating the fundamental scientific principles which govern the universe. The conversationists in Galileo’s Dialogue include a scholar of Copernicus, a man called Salviati, who makes a presentation of Galileo’s own scientific views, calling him a respected academician, and an Aristotelian scholar called Simplicio who presents the arguments for the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic view of the universe. Galileo’s contempt for Aristotle is clear from the name that he has given to the Aristotelian scholar—“Simplicio” means simpleton. The Dialogue of more than 600 pages is a direct confrontation between Galileo and Aristotle—the arguments that Simplicio presents are demolished one by one by Salviati who presents evidence in the form of scientific graphs, mathematical equations, and information derived from the direct observations through the telescope. They discuss the movement of heavenly bodies; the craters and mountains on the moon; the phases of Venus; the relation between ocean tides and motion of the earth; and much else. In the end, Galileo (through Salviati) manages to establish that while Copernicus was right on most things, Aristotle (and Ptolemy) had an erroneous view of the universe. The book became influential during the Renaissance; its first edition was sold out immediately after publication, but the religious establishment was outraged by the disrespect shown to Aristotelian cosmology. The Dialogue was placed in the list of forbidden books and on October 1, 1632, Galileo was summoned before the Inquisition to face prosecution for defaming the religious order.

On The Anti-Aristotelianism of the Renaissance

During the Renaissance, anti-Aristotelianism was at its zenith: Erasmus and Martin Luther despised Aristotle because they believed that he was the fountainhead of Scholastic philosophy that was polluting their religion and culture; Francis Bacon thought that Aristotle’s philosophy was barren, disputatious, and wrong in its objectives, an he held Aristotle responsible for the decline in scientific thinking in Europe. The work of Erasmus, Martin Luther, and Francis Bacon convinced the religious and the scientifically minded people of their time that Aristotle was having a baleful influence on their society and culture. The word “dunce”, derived from the name of the Aristotelian philosopher from the High Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, became a term of abuse and a synonym for Aristotelian scholars. Even playwrights like Shakespeare became caught in the wave of anti-Aristotelianism that was sweeping across Europe. In his play Hamlet, Shakespeare has Hamlet say, “And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” In the play, Horatio is inspired by the ideas of Aristotle.

My Doubts About the “Men of Reason"

A “man of reason” is someone who develops his understanding of the world through his perception and not through his projection. But most people who claim to be a man of reason fail on this very account—their belief in reason leads them to project an ersatz world in which they are always right, always moral, full of knowledge, and capable of holding better opinions than everyone else. An analysis of most votaries of reason will reveal that their thinking is warped and so is their projection of themselves. More often than not, the man who claims to be a “man of reason” is an ignorant person who is clueless of the great complications that a man faces in the use of reason and verifying the knowledge derived through it.

The Libertarian Notions of Liberty are Impractical

The libertarians believe that liberty is a magic wand that can cure society of all its woes. But history of last two thousand five hundred years shows that most city-states and nations where people enjoyed a high level of liberty were remarkably short-lived. The example of several societies can be considered to establish the point that greater the liberty, shorter the lifespan of the society: Ancient Athens after the Peloponnesian War, Ancient Rome, and Florence during the time of the Renaissance.

Liberty is that it leads to flowering of art, science, and private enterprise; it brings prosperity and comfort to the people. But liberty has unintended consequences too: it leads to the rise of a libertine society. When people have too much prosperity and comfort, they lose their character and passion for hard work—they become complacent, lazy, degenerate, and arrogant; they start taking their freedom for granted. A stage comes when a significant part of the society’s population becomes uninterested in being free and they start lusting for a statist political system.

The libertarian notion that liberty is the cure of all social problems is wide of the mark—liberty solves some problems, but not all, and eventually it leads to rise to several new problems. Liberty has within itself the seeds of its own destruction. A self-governed society which allows a high degree of liberty to its people might be good in the short term, but in the long term this society will be unstable. The paradox is that a free society with minimal government can only survive for a minimal amount of time.

The Three Ways of Philosophers

There are three ways by which a philosopher can convince his audience that his philosophy is good: first, he can try to show that his philosophy is logically consistent; second, he can try to prove that his philosophy works; third, he can assert that his philosophy is perfect because it is his philosophy and he is never wrong. A good philosopher will adopt the first way; a mediocre philosopher will adopt the second way; and a philosopher who is after political power will adopt the third way.

Meno: The Paradox of Inquiry

Socrates and Meno are discussing what virtue is and whether it can be taught in Plato’s dialogue Meno. This dialogue offers a good impression of the Socratic dialectical style. In it Socrates rephrases something that Meno has said in the form of a paradox. Here’s an excerpt:

MENO: How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know? 

SOCRATES: I know what you want to say, Meno. Do you realize what a debater’s argument you are bringing up, that a man cannot search either for what he knows or for what he does not know? He cannot search for what he knows—since he knows it, there is no need to search—nor for what he does not know, for he does not know what to look for. 

(Plato: Complete Works; Edited by John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson; “Meno,” translated by G.M.A. Grube; Page 880)

If you know what you are looking for, there is no need for an inquiry; if you don't know what you are looking for, then an inquiry is impossible—this is essentially a sophistical argument; it is possible for someone to know the question and not have an answer. But Socrates takes the argument seriously and goes on to propose his famous doctrine of recollection.

Philosophy is a Series of Footnotes to Plato

This excerpt from Alfred North Whitehead's book Process and Reality is my favorite saying on Plato: “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made his writing an inexhaustible mine of suggestion.”

On The Socratic Way of Philosophizing

In his Introduction to Plato: Complete Works (Edited by John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson), John M. Cooper writes:

"Socrates was a totally new kind of Greek philosopher. He denied that he had discovered some new wisdom, indeed that he possessed any wisdom at all, and he refused to hand anything down to anyone as his personal ‘truth’, his claim to fame. All that he knew, humbly, was how to reason and reflect, how to improve himself and (if they would follow him in behaving the same way) help others to improve themselves, by doing his best to make his own moral, practical opinions, and his life itself, rest on appropriately tested and examined reasons—not on social authority or the say-so of esteemed poets (or philosophers) or custom or any other kind of intellectual laziness. At the same time, he made this self-improvement and the search for truth in which it consisted a common, joint effort, undertaken in discussion together with similarly committed other per- sons—even if it sometimes took on a rather combative aspect. The truth, if achieved, would be a truth attained by and for all who would take the trouble to think through on their own the steps leading to it: it could never be a personal ‘revelation’ for which any individual could claim special credit."

In the following paragraph, Cooper talks about Plato’s way of writing the dialogues:

"In writing Socratic dialogues and, eventually, dialogues of other types, Plato was following Socrates in rejecting the earlier idea of the philosopher as wise man who hands down the truth to other mortals for their grateful acceptance and resulting fame for himself. It is important to realize that whatever is stated in his works is stated by one or another of his characters, not directly by Plato the author; in his writings he is not presenting his ‘truth’ and himself as its possessor, and he is not seeking glory for having it. If there is new wisdom and ultimate truth in his works, this is not served up on a plate. Plato does not formulate his own special ‘truth’ for his readers, for them to learn and accept. You must work hard even to find out what the author of a Platonic dialogue is saying to the reader— it is in the writing as a whole that the author speaks, not in the words of any single speaker—and the dialogue form demands that you think for yourself in deciding what, if anything, in it or suggested by it is really the truth. So you have to read and think about what each speaker says to the others (and also, sometimes, what he does not say), notice what may need further defense than is actually given it, and attend to the author’s manner in presenting each character, and the separate speeches, for indications of points on which the author thinks some further thought is required. And, beyond that, you must think for yourself, reasoning on the basis of the text, to see whether or not there really are adequate grounds in support of what it may appear to you the text as a whole is saying. In all this, Plato is being faithful to Socrates’ example: the truth must be arrived at by each of us for ourselves, in a cooperative search, and Plato is only inviting others to do their own intellectual work, in cooperation with him, in thinking through the issues that he is addressing."

On Philosophical Judgements

Point1: A philosopher is judged by his intentions and vision. 

Point 2: A philosophy is judged by its methodologies and the quality of its arguments. 

Point 3: A philosophical movement is judged by its achievements.

Ethics is the Art of the Approximate

Being a master of ethical philosophy and being capable of mastering yourself are two different values which seldom coexist in a man. There is not a single philosopher of ethics who has demonstrated through his conduct that he is capable of practicing the ethical ideas that he preaches. When judged on the basis of their own ethical principles, all philosophers of ethics appear unethical. Aristotle was right when he defined virtue as the “golden mean” between the two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. The identification and the practice of perfect virtues is beyond the scope of the human mind—the best we can do is try to approach the approximate or the “golden mean” of the virtues.

Voegelin on Classical and Modernist Thought

In his essay, "The Classical Studies,” Eric Voegelin notes that Plato and Aristotle have created philosophy as the science of the nature of man, but the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy is in conflict with the contemporary climate of opinion. Voegelin lists nine points of disagreement between classical thought and modernist thought. Here are five of his principal points:

1. Classic: There is a nature of man, a definite structure of existence that puts limits on perfectibility.

Modern: The nature of man can be changed, either through historical evolution or through revolutionary action, so that a perfect realm of freedom can be established in history.

2. Classic: Philosophy is the endeavor to advance from opinion (doxa) about the order of man and society to science (episteme); the philosopher is not a philodoxer.

Modern: No science in such matters is possible, only opinion; everybody is entitled to his opinions; we have a pluralist society.

3. Classic: Society is man written large.

Modern: Man is society written small.

4. Classic: Man exists in erotic tension toward the divine ground of his existence.

Modern: He doesn’t; for I don’t; and I’m the measure of man.

5. Classic: Through the life of reason (bios theoretikos) man realizes his freedom.

Modern: Plato and Aristotle were fascists. The life of reason is a fascist enterprise.

Nationalist Sparta and Democratic Athens

Classical Athens was a noisy democracy, while Sparta was a militaristic and nationalistic state; both were political rivals and they fought against each other in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC). The alliance led by Sparta was victorious over the Athenian alliance. For reasons that are unclear, the Athenian society, which was crippled and demoralized by the defeat in the Peloponnesian War, gave rise to several brilliant minds, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The militarily powerful Sparta did not produce any major thinker, but it can be said to have played a role in keeping Athens safe from invaders—this, I think, can be seen as the contribution that the Spartans have made to the cause of philosophy, literature, and art. In 480 BC, the Persian King Xerxes would have wiped out Athens and rest of Ancient Greece if the Spartan King Leonidas had not stopped the Persian army comprising of more than 200,000 soldiers at the narrow passageway of Thermopylae. Without nationalistic and militaristic Sparta, there would not have been any democratic and liberal Athens—and without Athens, it is possible that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and several other artists and writers might not have found a conducive social environment for doing their work.