The image is Raphael’s version of Hypatia, the astronomer, mathematician, and neoplatonic philosopher who was murdered by a religious mob in 415.
Hypatia lived and died in Alexandria, Egypt, then a clashing hotbed of philosophical schools and rising radical religion. The rising radical religion of the time was Christianity.
Hypatia’s nemesis was Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria and leader of a fanatical group of Christian activists. The Christians lived their mission of converting everyone, by whatever means, to their doctrine. Under Cyril’s leadership, the Christians accused Hypatia of paganism and witchcraft, threw stones at her allies, and became increasingly violent until a violent Christian mob killed her, dismembered her body, and burned it on a pyre.
(Here is a recent encomium for now-Saint Cyril of Alexandria, “a guardian of the true faith,” by Pope Benedict XVI. For an unflattering portrait of Cyril, Agora is a worth-watching movie about Hypatia’s life and death.)
Those were the bad old days.
Fast forward 1,600 years to Egypt now and the resurgent Muslim Brotherhood. The MB movement was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna (also an admirer of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists), and it has led a mostly-underground existence since then. In the second half of the twentieth century, Sayyid Qutb became the MB’s leading intellectual voice and his Milestones its manifesto:
“When Islam strives for peace, its objective is not that superficial peace which requires that only that part of the earth where the followers of Islam are residing remain secure. The peace which Islam desires is that the religion (i.e., the Law of the society) be purified for God, that the obedience of all people be for God alone” (Milestones, p. 63).
(Muhammad Qutb, Sayyid’s younger brother, was a university professor in Saudi Arabia, where one of his students was Osama Bin Laden.)
The ousting of Egypt’s thug-president Hosni Mubarak has led to a power vacuum, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s has now become a potent political force in Egypt. The MB’s motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
So how different is Egypt 1,600 years later? And whither Egypt’s philosophers, scientists, and independent thinkers?
In this third Socratic seminar on the Best Arguments against Free-market Capitalism, we take up three arguments: a) the paternalist argument that human beings are incapable of living freely,
b) the collectivist argument that wealth is a social creation (at 11 minutes), and
c) the religious argument that value is not of this world (at 32 minutes).
One of my professors in graduate school argued that St. Augustine is the most influential philosopher in history. I’m not convinced, though a good case can be made.
I recently re-opened Confessions and came across Augustine’s strong version of original sin. As he exclaims to his God, “no one is free from sin in your sight, not even an infant whose span of earthly life is but a single day” (Book I).
To explain, Augustine tries to reconstruct his own infancy: “What then was my sin at that age? Was it perhaps that I cried so greedily for those breasts? Certainly if I behaved like that now, greedy not for breasts, of course, but for food suitable to my age, I should provoke derision and be very properly rebuked. My behavior then was equally deserving of rebuke.”
And of course the tantrums. Witness “the actions of a child who begs tearfully for objects that would harm him if given, gets into a tantrum when free persons, older persons and his parents, will not comply with his whims, and tries to hurt many people who know better by hitting out at them as hard as his strength allows, simply because they will not immediately fall in with his wishes or obey his commands, which would damage him if carried out?” The little rotter.
Not to forget what kids do to diapers.
Thus, Augustine concludes, “The only innocent feature in babies is the weakness of their frames; the minds of infants are far from innocent.”
Supposing that babies are wicked, the next question is: How did they come to be so?
Western religions start the sordid story with Adam and Eve, but original sin is a puzzle. How can later generations be held responsible for the mistakes of the earlier? A cross-generational collectivism is necessary, and it needs a method for the guilt to be transmitted from one generation to the next.
Here’s a possibility. On standard religious accounts, a human being is an immaterial soul conjoined to a physical body. So sin originates either in the soul or in the body. But if the soul of each person is made afresh by God, then it can’t be corrupt since God is supposed to be a perfect creator. So the source of sin must be in the body. That could make sense, since the original sin was committed by Adam and Eve and we could inherit it from them by being made by their bodies through sexual reproduction. But above Augustine clearly holds babies’ “frames” to be innocent and to locate the sin in their minds.
So we’re back to sin’s source being in the mind. What feature of the mind could be problematic? Free will, Augustine suggests. But other problems arise, since he is also committed elsewhere to God’s omnipotence and omniscience. If God is omnipotent and we are made weak and powerless, how can we be held responsible? Also, free will is a power; but if omnipotent God has all the power, then humans can’t have any. Further: if God is omniscient, then he knows the future, in which case there are no genuine options and so no free will.
But the philosophical puzzles don’t get babies off the hook for Augustine. Their sinful natures develop for the worse until adolescence generates even more sin. “From the mud of my fleshly desires and my erupting puberty belched out murky clouds that obscured and darkened my heart until I could not distinguish the calm light of love from the fog of lust.”
Greed, anger, lust, and the full panoply of sins thus become the lot of weakling mankind. And we know what awaits the wicked.
For my Introduction to Philosophy course, a question on the final exam [pdf] was:
“Religion was a theme for all of our authors this semester:
* Socrates was put on trial and found guilty of impiety;
* Galileo was silenced despite arguing for a compromise between science and religion;
* Descartes tried to prove with certainty the existence of God;
* One of Rand’s characters says to Roark: “You are a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark—in your own way. I can see that in your buildings”;
* Lewis devoted two chapters to how and why religion must be a matter of faith;
* Freud dismissed religion as a childish illusion but nonetheless argued that it is necessary socially.
In your judgment, which of our authors has the best approach to religion?”
My twelve students’ responses:
None chose Freud.
One voted for Socrates’s skeptical-but-searching-for-wisdom approach to piety.
Two defended Rand’s approach, arguing that for modern, natural-minded people worshiping human creative potential for greatness is the best “religion” (one student used the scare quotes).
Another two liked Descartes’ attempt rigorously to prove the existence of God, though one seemed more to admire the attempt than to think it worked.
Three agreed with Lewis’s strong humility-and-faith-based approach to religion and Christianity in particular.
Four approved of Galileo’s separation of religion and science and especially his argument that since God gave us our senses and reason piety is best served by using them to come to understand the natural world He created.
So I hereby declare Galileo Galilei to be the best philosopher of religion for the Spring 2011 semester.
Intriguing sideways connection to Heidegger and militarism: Warby also reviews Brian Daizen Victoria’s Zen at War, “a study of how Zen Buddhism became deeply complicit in Japanese militarism,” just as Heidegger’s mystically-charged writings became complicit in German militarism. Warby there points to this piece by Professor Jeremiah Reedy, who reports: “a German friend of Heidegger told me that one day when he visited Heidegger he found him reading one of [Daisetsu Teitaro] Suzuki’s books [on Zen Buddhism]: ‘If I understand this man correctly,’ Heidegger remarked, ‘this is what I have been trying to say in all my writings.’”
So globalization still has work to do — to spread not only free markets and free politics, but the core cognitive principles and practices that enable us to live as free human beings. And it is important to remember that, in cultural time, it was not long ago that many in Europe and North America were still in the grip of superstition and spooky supernaturalism.
Here is a classic example from 1587. In that year, Michelangelo had been dead for 23 years and Galileo was 23 years old, but the Europe that could produce artists and scientists on that scale could still persecute women like Walpurga Hausmännin for witchcraft.
The Judgment of a Witch
FUGGER NEWS-LETTER
THE HEREIN mentioned, malefic and miserable woman, Walpurga Hausmännin, now imprisoned and in chains, has, upon kindly questioning and also torture, following on persistent and fully justified accusations, confessed her witchcraft and admitted the following. When one-and-thirty years ago she had become a widow, she cut corn for Hans Schlumperger, of this place, together with his former servant, Bis im Pfarrhof by name. Him she enticed with lewd speeches and gestures, and they convened that they should, on an appointed night, meet in her, Walpurga’s, dwelling, there to indulge in lustful intercourse. So when Walpurga in expectation of this sat awaiting him at night in her chamber, meditating upon evil and fleshly thoughts, it was not the said bondsman who appeared unto her, but the Evil One in the latter’s guise and raiment and indulged in fornication with her. Thereupon he presented her with a piece of money, in the semblance of half a thaler, but no one could take it from her, for it was a bad coin and like lead. For this reason she had thrown it away. After the act of fornication she saw and felt the cloven foot of her whore-monger, and that his hand was not natural, but as if made of wood. She was greatly affrighted thereat and called upon the name of Jesus, whereupon the Devil left her and vanished.
On the ensuing night the Evil Spirit visited her again in the same shape and whored with her. He made her many promises to help her in her poverty and need, wherefore she surrendered herself to him body and soul. Thereafter the Evil One inflicted upon her a scratch below the left shoulder, demanding that she should sell her soul to him with the blood that had flowed therefrom. To this end he gave her a quill and, whereas she could not write, the Evil One guided her hand. She believes that nothing offensive was written, for the Evil One only swept with her hand across the paper. The script the Devil took with him, and whenever she piously thought of God Almighty, or wished to go to church, the Devil reminded her of it.
Further, the above-mentioned Walpurga confesses that she oft and much rode on a pitchfork by night with her paramour, but not far, on account of her duties. At such devilish trysts she met a big man with a grey beard, who sat in a chair, like a great prince, and was richly attired. That was the Great Devil to whom she had once more dedicated and promised herself body and soul. Him she worshipped and before him she knelt, and unto him she rendered other suchlike honours. But she pretends not to know with what words and in which fashion she prayed. She only knows that once she heedlessly pronounced the name of Jesus. Then the above-mentioned Great Devil struck her in the face and Walpurga had to disown (which is terrible to relate) God in heaven, the Christian name and belief, the blessed saints and the Holy Sacraments, also to renounce the heavenly hosts and the whole of Christendom. Thereupon the Great Devil baptized her afresh, naming her Höfelin, but her paramour-devil, Federlin oft received the Blessed Sacrament of the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, apparently by the mouth, but had not partaken of it, but (which once more is terrible to relate) had always taken it out of her mouth again and delivered it up to Federlin, her paramour. At their nightly gatherings she had oft with her other playfellows trodden underfoot the Holy and Blessed Sacrament and the image of the Holy Cross. The said Walpurga states that during such-like frightful and loathsome blasphemies she at times truly did espy drops of blood upon the said Holy Sacrament, whereat she herself was greatly horrified. . . . She confesses, also, that her paramour gave her a salve in a little box with which to injure people and animals, and even the precious fruit of the field. He also compelled her to do away with and to kill young infants at birth, even before they had been taken to Holy Baptism. This she did, whenever possible. …
She rubbed with her salve and brought about the death of Lienhart Geilen’s three cows, of Bruchbauer’s horse, two years ago of Max Petzel’s cow, three years ago of Dun Striegel’s cow, two years ago of Hans Striegel’s cow, of the cow of the governor’s wife, of a cow of Frau Schötterin, and two years ago of a cow of Michel Klingler, on the village green. In short, she confesses that she destroyed a large number of cattle over and above this. A year ago she found bleached linen on the common and rubbed it with her salve, so that the pigs and geese ran over it and perished shortly thereafter. Walpurga confesses further that every year since she has sold herself to the Devil she has on St. Leonard’s Day exhumed at least one or two innocent children. With her devil-paramour and other playfellows she has eaten these and used their hair and their little bones for witchcraft. She was unable to exhume the other children she had slain at birth, although she attempted it, because they had been baptized before God.
She had used the said little bones to manufacture hail; this she was wont to do once or twice a year. Once this spring, from Siechenhausen, downwards across the fields. She likewise manufactured hail last Whitsun, and when she and others were accused of having held a witches’ revel, she had actually held one near the upper gate by the garden of Peter Schmidt. At that time her playfellows began to quarrel and struck one another, because some wanted to cause it to hail over Dillingen Meadows, others below it. At last the hail was sent over the marsh towards Weissingen, doing great damage. She admits that she would have caused still more and greater evils and damage if the Almighty had not graciously prevented and turned them away.
After all this, the Judges and Jury of the Court of this Town of Dillingen, by virtue of the Imperial and Royal Prerogative and Rights of his Right Reverence, Herr Marquard, bishop of Augsburg, and provost of the Cathedral, our most gracious prince and lord, at last unanimously gave the verdict that the aforesaid Walpurga Hausmännin be punished and dispatched from life to death by burning at the stake as being a maleficent and well-known witch and sorceress, convicted according to the context of Common Law and the Criminal Code of the Emperor Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire. All her goods and chattels and estate left after her to go to the Treasury of our most high prince and lord. The aforesaid Walpurga to be led, seated on a cart, to which she is tied, to the place of her execution, and her body first to be torn five times with red-hot irons. The first time outside the town hail in the left breast and the right arm, the second time at the lower gate in the right breast, the third time at the mill brook outside the hospital gate in the left arm, the fourth time at the place of execution in the left hand. But since for nineteen years she was a licensed and pledged midwife of the city of Dilhingen, yet has acted so vilely, her right hand with which she did such knavish tricks is to be cut off at the place of execution. Neither are her ashes after the burning to remain lying on the ground, but are thereafter to be carried to the nearest flowing water and thrown thereinto. Thus a venerable jury have entrusted the executioner of this city with the actual execution and all connected therewith.
[From The Fugger News-Letters, ed. Victor von Klarwell, trans. P. de Chary (London: John Lane, The Bodley Head Ltd., 1924, pp. 259-262). Also reprinted in The Portable Renaissance Reader.]
For my Introduction to Philosophy course, an optional question on the final exam was:
In your judgment, what is the mostdangerous book we read this semester? First give a clear and sympathetic presentation of the book’s most important themes, and then explain why you think the book is dangerous.
We read six major works in the course: Plato’s Apology and Crito, Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, Galileo’s “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina,” Descartes’ Meditations, C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, and Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents.
Nineteen students chose to address this question.
One chose Galileo’s work as the most dangerous, on the grounds that Galileo’s resulting conflict with the Church was disastrous to him personally and shows how dangerous it can be to question authority.
One student argued that Plato’s Apology was dangerous because Socrates was too uncompromising and that leads to social harm.
Three students voted Descartes’ Meditations as most dangerous, two on the grounds that it can lead one to lose all sense of reality and become psychotic and one on the grounds that his reasoning seems circular and leads nowhere leaving one with nothing.
Rand’s The Fountainhead was voted most dangerous by three students. As with the student who chose Socrates in Plato’s Apology, one argued that her view is too uncompromising and leads to social harm; additionally, it is too hard to apply and so sets one up for failure. One argued that her view of egoism challenges the whole tradition of religious ethics. And one argued that Peter Keating’s character materialistic and socially immoral character is too tempting a role model for most.
Four students voted for Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents as the most dangerous book. One argued that he undermines free will and moral responsibility. Two took issue with his insulting view of religion and argued that he misses the hope that religion offers. And one argued that his strong pessimism about life itself is dangerously demotivating.
Six students chose Lewis’s Mere Christianity. One objected to his attack on reason and defense of strong faith. One objected to his attempt to destroy our human sense of worth and self-esteem. One argued that his extreme view of human sinfulness was dangerous. Two argued that Lewis got Christianity wrong in presenting too extreme a version of it. And one argued that the danger of Mere Christianity is that it scares reasonable people away from Christianity.
Finally, one student voted The Fountainhead and Mere Christianity as jointly the most dangerous for the reason that American readers resonate with both given their cultural history and that that leads to paralyzing conundrums about what the right philosophy is.
So with 6.5 votes in total, I hereby declare Mere Christianity to be the Most Dangerous Book in Introduction to Philosophy, Rockford College, Fall Semester 2010.
Pope Alexander VI really knew how to throw a party. Rodrigo Borgia became Alexander VI in 1492 and livened things up at the Vatican. As reported in William Manchester’s excellent A World Lit Only by Fire, p. 79:
‘Once he became Pope Alexander VI, Vatican parties, already wild, grew wilder. They were costly, but he could afford the lifestyle of a Renaissance prince; as vice-chancellor of the Roman Church, he had amassed enormous wealth.
‘As guests approached the papal palace, they were excited by the spectacle of living statues: naked, gilded young men and women in erotic poses. Flags bore the Borgia arms, which, appropriately, portrayed a red bull rampant on a field of gold. Every fete had a theme. One, known to Romans as the Ballet of the Chestnuts, was held on October 30, 1501. The indefatigable [Johann] Burchard describes it in his Diarium. After the banquet had been cleared away, the city’s fifty most beautiful whores danced with guests, “first clothed, then naked.” The dancing over, the “ballet” began, with the pope and two of his children in the best seats.
‘“Candelabra were set up on the floor; scattered among them were chestnuts, which,” Burchard writes, “the courtesans had to pick up, crawling between the candles.” Then the serious sex started. Guests stripped and ran out on the floor, where they mounted, or were mounted by, the prostitutes. “The coupling took place,” according to Burchard, “in front of everyone present.” Servants kept score of each man’s orgasms, for the pope greatly admired virility and measured a man’s machismo by his ejaculative capacity. After everyone was exhausted, His Holiness distributed prizes—cloaks, boots, caps, and fine silken tunics. The winners, the diarist wrote, were those “who made love with those courtesans the greatest number of times.”’
All of which sort-of makes understandable Reformation reactions to the other extreme, e.g., John Calvin’s Geneva.
The image is Raphael’s version of Hypatia, the astronomer, mathematician, and neoplatonic philosopher who was murdered by a religious mob in 415.
Fast forward 1,600 years to Egypt now and the resurgent Muslim Brotherhood. The MB movement was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna (also an admirer of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists), and it has led a mostly-underground existence since then. In the second half of the twentieth century, Sayyid Qutb became the MB’s leading intellectual voice and his Milestones its manifesto:
a) the paternalist argument that human beings are incapable of living freely,
So I hereby declare 
Australia’s 
“a German friend of Heidegger told me that one day when he visited Heidegger he found him reading one of [Daisetsu Teitaro] Suzuki’s books [on Zen Buddhism]: ‘If I understand this man correctly,’ Heidegger remarked, ‘this is what I have been trying to say in all my writings.’”
One student argued that Plato’s Apology was dangerous because Socrates was too uncompromising and that leads to social harm. 
Three students voted Descartes’ Meditations as most dangerous, two on the grounds that it can lead one to lose all sense of reality and become psychotic and one on the grounds that his reasoning seems circular and leads nowhere leaving one with nothing. 
Rand’s The Fountainhead was voted most dangerous by three students. As with the student who chose Socrates in Plato’s Apology, one argued that her view is too uncompromising and leads to social harm; additionally, it is too hard to apply and so sets one up for failure. One argued that her view of egoism challenges the whole tradition of religious ethics. And one argued that Peter Keating’s character materialistic and socially immoral character is too tempting a role model for most. 
Four students voted for Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents as the most dangerous book. One argued that he undermines free will and moral responsibility. Two took issue with his insulting view of religion and argued that he misses the hope that religion offers. And one argued that his strong pessimism about life itself is dangerously demotivating. 
Six students chose Lewis’s Mere Christianity. One objected to his attack on reason and defense of strong faith. One objected to his attempt to destroy our human sense of worth and self-esteem. One argued that his extreme view of human sinfulness was dangerous. Two argued that Lewis got Christianity wrong in presenting too extreme a version of it. And one argued that the danger of Mere Christianity is that it scares reasonable people away from Christianity. 
