Classic Philosophy for the Modern Man Read online

  Classic Philosophy for the Modern Man

  Andrew Lynn has a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature from Cambridge University. He has lectured in Western civilization in Beijing and now practises law with a particular interest in the field of international dispute resolution.

  www.andrewlynn.com

  Classic Philosophy for the Modern Man

  Andrew Lynn

  Howgill House Books

  www.howgillhousebooks.com

  Copyright © Andrew Lynn 2017

  ISBN 978-1-912360-02-4

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Plato, The Republic

  2. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

  3. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

  4. Chuang-tzu, The Writings of Chuang-tzu

  5. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

  6. Baldassare Castiglione, The Courtier

  7. Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

  8. William Hazlitt, On Success

  9. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

  10. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Spiritual Laws

  Conclusion

  Bibliography

  Also Available

  Introduction

  How to live well?

  There is no more important question than this.

  The difficulty is not in finding an answer. Everybody (and their dog) is willing to give you an answer. But the answer they give is invariably their answer. It may be the answer reflecting their particular prejudices and preoccupations at this particular time. It may be the answer pointing in the direction of their particular commercial or political objectives. Or it may simply be the answer most widely circulated and – seemingly at least – widely accepted by the public at large.

  This is where philosophy steps in as the boldest attempt to establish generally applicable principles for living well. Confident that philosophy at its best reaches further and probes deeper than other approaches to the great questions of life, we give you here a readable and thought-provoking selection from classic works of the very best thinkers from European, Asian, and American history. We start in the West with Plato, Aristotle, and Marcus Aurelius and in the East with Chuang-tzu – each of whom provides fundamental rules for living and acting. From there we journey to Italy and Spain of the Renaissance where Machiavelli, Castiglione, and Gracián teach us how to obtain and exercise power, how to live gracefully, and how to advance in the world. Northern Europe is the next destination: from Germany, Nietzsche teaches nobility of soul, and from England William Hazlitt anatomizes success. Our final destination, fittingly, is the New World, from where Ralph Waldo Emerson speaks to us of the importance of being one’s own man. Between them, these profound and inspirational thinkers tell a story of mankind’s tussles with his predicament and provide solutions to a wide variety of his problems.

  ‘The unexamined life is not worth living,’ said Socrates famously, in a saying that has constituted the fundamental self-justification of many a professional and armchair philosopher. There is much to be said for a life lived in the unremitting pursuit of truth. These words are not, however, an unambiguous confirmation of the life of the mind. Socrates uttered them not in a moment of calm reflection but at his trial for corruption of Athenian youth and for impiety, having been found guilty and condemned to death by drinking hemlock. While the unexamined life is not worth living, then, might not the over-examined life be unliveable too?

  This book, accordingly, charts a middle path between the life of the mind and life in this world. We are at all times interested in practical wisdom. Academic philosophy as taught in universities is remote from our concerns – too much of it is pedantic, dry, and sterile. What you hold in your hands is a handbook for living: it is an account of how the greatest minds have spoken to us on how to grow and prosper as flesh-and-blood human beings. This they do, and they do with originality and panache. There will be no need for drinking of hemlock here.

  Underlying and reconciling the many diverse approaches contained in this book is a single guiding principle that is best summed up in the phrase ‘self-possession’. Self-possession is what is needed to escape the unrealities of Plato’s cave and it is what is needed to achieve Aristotle’s golden mean. Self-possession in its various forms is what is needed to be an effective emperor (Marcus Aurelius), prince (Machiavelli), courtier (Castiglione), and man of the world (Gracián). The noble soul of Nietzsche and Emerson’s self-trusting man are marked by precisely the same quality.

  You will be inspired and changed by these texts. They bear within them the possibility of new ways of thinking and living. They are the works of great beings speaking to us across the centuries.

  Hear them. Listen to them. Let them in.

  1

  Plato, The Republic

  Introduction

  It has been said that the history of Western philosophy is but a footnote to Plato. It could equally well be said that all of Plato is but an elaboration of his ‘allegory of the cave’. The allegory of the cave – from Book VII of his Republic – is a dialogue between Socrates, Plato’s teacher, and Plato’s brother Glaucon. It is a profound reflection on the world of unreality – what the Eastern religions call ‘maya’ – in which we live.

  We are first to imagine human beings living in an underground den. Their legs and necks have been chained so that they cannot move and can only see what is in front of them. Behind these prisoners – at a distance – a fire is blazing. Between the fire and the prisoners is a low wall. Across the top of the wall, men carry vessels, statues, and figures of animals. Some of these men are talking and their voices echo off the cave walls.

  What, then, would be the experience of these prisoners and how would they understand their own world? Of themselves, they would see nothing but their own shadows cast against the cave wall. Of the objects carried along the wall, they would likewise see merely shadowed forms. And of the talk of the men in the cave, they would hear only the echo, which to them would seem to emanate from the shadows on the wall. Their whole truth and reality would be nothing but this shadowy puppet-show.

  Now imagine one of the prisoners is released and is able to make an escape. He will be pained and distressed by the brightness of the natural light flowing in from the mouth of the cave. He will still believe that the shadows that he formerly saw are truer than the objects he is being shown now. At first, he will stay with the shadows and reflections. Then he will venture out at night-time. Only at the end will he be able to behold the sun as the source of all that is.

  Finally, imagine what would happen if the released man decided to liberate his fellow prisoners. He would have to return to the cave below to do that. Now, though, his sight would be unaccustomed to the darkness. To the prisoners below – who have been busy conferring honours upon those who were ‘quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after’ – the returned man with his ineffective vision would seem ridiculous. Better not to even think of ascending, they would conclude. And, should anyone think of releasing another – well, let him be killed.

  Plato gives his own interpretation of the allegory: the prison-house, he says, is ‘the world of sight’. We are trapped, then, in an illusory world created by the senses and condemned to see only the shadows of true reality. Academic philosophers at this juncture invariably refer to Plato’s theory of Forms. The Forms are the unchanging essences – such as beaut
y, truth, courage, and goodness – that support the ever-varying particular manifestations of themselves. It is these and these alone that have true substantial reality.

  There’s nothing wrong with that explanation. But Plato’s allegory is just as much concerned with what can be called ‘the experience of awakening’. It tells of how easy it is to become trapped in a false world without knowing it: all that is required for us to go along with the fiction is for the components of the false world to appear consistent with each other. It tells of the process of awakening, which is impeded and interrupted by bouts of pain and denial. And it tells of the alienation and isolation of the awakened one from his fellow men. Far from conferring glory or honour, the returning truth-bearer is perceived as defective and inadequate. The rewards of awakening are not easily shared. And yet those rewards are real – the power to act rationally both in public and in private life.

  * * *

  Book VII

  And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

  I see.

  And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

  You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

  Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

  True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

  And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

  Yes, he said.

  And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

  Very true.

  And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

  No question, he replied.

  To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

  That is certain.

  And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision—what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them—will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

  Far truer.

  And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

  True, he said.

  And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.

  Not all in a moment, he said.

  He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?

  Certainly.

  Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.

  Certainly.

  He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?

  Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

  And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?

  Certainly, he would.

  And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,

  ‘Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,’

  and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?

  Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.

  Imagine once more, I said, such a one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

  To be sure, he said.

  And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

  No question, he said.

  This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed—whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

  2

  Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

  Introduction

  The ancient Greeks were different from us. At the core of their philosophies was the concept of arête. In its basic sense arête is ‘excellence’ of any kind. It means fulfilment of purpose or function – living up to one’s f
ull potential. This is a powerful starting point. It will be obvious that ancient Greek explorations of virtue, then, have something to offer those who seek an ethical path that goes beyond the bland amiability and do-goodism of our contemporary moral landscape.

  Here’s Aristotle’s take on it.

  Excellence is a product of nurture rather than of nature. We acquire this excellence by literally doing acts that are virtuous: it is through doing acts of temperance that we become temperate and through doing acts of courage that we become courageous. In fact, ‘acts of any kind produce habits or characters of the same kind’, says Aristotle, and virtues and vices are no exception. Excellence is, at root, a kind of habit or character formed by relatively consistent actions of a related nature.

  The correct method for cultivating excellence rests upon an appreciation of the effects of pleasure and pain. Excellence consists in finding pleasure in what is excellent and experiencing pain in what is mediocre. He who faces danger with pleasure (or at least without pain) is courageous; he to whom danger is painful is a coward. But pleasures and pains are not fixed; we find pleasure and pain largely as we have been taught. Man needs to be trained from his youth to find pleasure and pain in the right objects.

  The ultimate goal of such cultivation is excellence, which means – for Aristotle as much as any ancient Greek – arête as the fulfilment of man’s purpose or function. ‘The proper excellence or virtue of man,’ says Aristotle, ‘will be the habit or trained faculty that makes him good and makes him perform his function well.’ What makes a man good and perform his function well is to cultivate the habit of ‘choosing the mean’. Courage stands at the mean between foolhardiness (in excess) and cowardice (in deficiency); pleasantness at the mean between buffoonery (in excess) and boorishness (in deficiency). But this ‘mean’ is to be understood in context. Fear, confidence, desire, anger, and pity may all stand at some distance from the mean in many contexts, but ‘to be thus affected at the right times, and on the right occasions, and towards the right persons, and with the right object, and in the right fashion, is the mean course and the best course, and these are characteristics of virtue’.