Ancient Wisdom, Science and Technology

Alice C. Linsley

In a recent (2014) conversation with self-proclaimed atheists, I was told that theology and religion emerged because people who lived before the time of science needed to explain natural phenomena; the implication being that we no longer need religion now that we have science. I attempted to explain that the earliest developments in science and technology were motivated by religious concerns, but they were not interested. Their minds were closed and reasoning with them proved a waste of time.

As the Romanian sociologist Mircea Eliade has shown, people of antiquity believed that things on earth are patterned after things in the heavens. Eliade called these “celestial archetypes.” The notion “as in the heavens, so on earth” is common among tribal peoples. Their rituals and ceremonies mirror the celestial patterns which they observe in the clock-like motion of the fixed stars and constellations. Among archaic peoples, these observations were done by a caste of ruler-priests who served at advisers to the early kingdom builders.

It was a risky business because there were serious consequences if their calculations were wrong. If the ceremony was not performed on exactly the right day, the advisers could be blamed for violating a celestial pattern. If war broke out, or the crops failed, or there was a flood, the ruler’s advisers were blamed. This happened to Chinese astronomers who failed to predict the solar eclipse of 2134 BC. The emperor ordered that they all be executed.

The threat of punishment, even death, motivated the king’s advisers to be as accurate as possible in their calculations. This led to the development of sidereal astronomy. The sidereal day (four minutes longer than the solar day) is the time required for the earth’s rotation to be synchronized with fixed stars. Solar time is the measurement of time according to the earth’s rotation around the sun, but sidereal time is the measurement relative to a distant star. It is used in astronomy to predict when a star will be overhead.

When making ethical decisions, especially decisions that pertained to the timing of important events such as royal weddings and the signing of treaties, ancient peoples relied on observations of the stars and constellations which move in a fixed pattern. Sidereal astronomy is based on the actual location of stars and constellations, unlike popular astrology which is based on culturally relative symbolism associated with stars and constellations. Sidereal astronomy developed out of an ethical concern to uphold the celestial pattern believed to have been established by the Creator in the beginning.

This worldview is alien to modern Americans and regarded as superstition by atheists. Yet the acute observation of ancient peoples gave birth to technologies such as metal and stonework and to the development of sciences such as horticulture, animal husbandry, sidereal astronomy, and medicine.

Let us consider but a few examples.

Horticulture
The ancestors of the Nes craftsmen of Anatolian sites like Gobleki Tepe cultivated both einkorn and emmer wheats about 12,000 years ago, according to genetics and archaeological studies. African rice was domesticated from the wild ancestor Oryza barthii (Oryza brevilugata) by peoples living in the Benue-Niger floodplain about 3,000 years ago. Rice grain formed the basis of weight measurement from East Africa to Sulawesi. In Madagascar, the weight of one grain of rice is called vary which corresponds to the Swahili wari and to the Dravidian verasu. The common stem of these words indicates that these people kept written records of commercial weights.

The ancients observed that the seeds of plants that fall to the ground produce plants of the same kind. It was logical to assume that the seed that should fall to the earth is the seed of plants, which spring forth from the earth. Likewise, the seed of man should fall on his own type (the womb), from which man comes forth. This was regarded as the divine order in creation. Therefore, the ancients regarded both onanism (spilling of human semen) and homosex to be in violation of the established order. This is the ancient wisdom that based moral law on observed patterns in nature.

Animal Husbandry
Cattle were domesticated in what is today Kenya 15,000 years ago. The common term for cattle or cow in the many African languages is nag (Wolog, Fulani), nagge (Hausa), ning (Angas, Ankwe) and ninge (Susu). This corresponds to the Egyptian word ng or nag.

Red and black Nubian cattle herders

Cattle bones were found in graves of the elite classes at Hierakonpolis (Nekhen in Sudan) and cow skulls were used to mark the pan graves of the ancient Saharans. The oldest evidence of domestication of wild pigs is found at Nekhen, Maadi, Abydos, and Armant, near graves belonging to the poorer classes, indicating that the diet of the lower classes included pork. Cows were also domesticated by the Nilo-Saharans, who even took them on their boats (see second image below). 

Boats and cows of the ancient Nilo-Saharans

Sidereal Astronomy

Sidereal astronomy is real science based on observation of the arrangement and movement of the fixed stars and planets. This science originated among Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors who had recorded information about the fixed stars and clock-like motion of the planets and constellations for thousands of years. By 4245 BC, the priests of the Upper Nile had established a calendar based on the appearance of the star Sirius that becomes visible to the naked eye once every 1,461 years. Apparently, they had been tracking this star and connecting it to seasonal changes and agriculture for thousands of years. The priest Manetho reported in his history (241 BC) that Nilotic Africans had been “star-gazing” as early as 40,000 years ago. They shared this knowledge with the kings of Egypt.

The ancient Egyptians shared the knowledge with the ancient Greeks. Plato claimed that the Africans had been tracking the heavens for 10,000 years. Plato studied with an Egyptian priest for 13 years and knew about Earth's Great Year, also called the "Platonic Year." This is the time of between 25,000 and 28,000 years that it takes for Earth to complete the cycle of axial precession. This precession was known to Plato who defined the "perfect year" as the return of the celestial bodies (planets) and the diurnal rotation of the fixed stars to their original positions.

The ancients were motivated to understand the celestial pattern because they believed that the order in creation was fixed by the Creator, and they were concerned about trespassing boundaries or violating the order in creation. 

Medicine
The Edwin Smith papyrus is the world's oldest known surgical document (c. 1600 BC). It is written in the hieratic script of ancient Egypt and Kush and reveals a high level of sophistication in medical care. It gives detailed descriptions of anatomy, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of forty-eight types of medical problems. It describes closing wounds with sutures, preventing and curing infection with honey and moldy bread (both known to contain antibiotics), application of raw meat to stop bleeding, and treatment of head and spinal cord injuries. The Nubians also used antibiotics. Between 350 and 550 AD Nubians laced their beer with tetracycline.

Other Achievements

The great prehistoric monoliths and circles of standing stones attest to the skill of the early architects and stone masons.

The rich burial goods discovered with the early chiefs and rulers attest to the skill of metal workers. Consider the amazing hoard buried with Varna Man 7,000 years ago.

Related reading: Ethics and Archaic Communities; Ancient Seats of Wisdom; Who Were the Wise Men?; Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt; Early Metaphysics: Primal substance and cause; Medical Care in Ancient Egypt; Pursuing Truth as Persons of Faith; Christians in Science and Math

Thumbnail Sketch of Jacques Derrida

“For me, writing means to withdraw myself, even if one appears when one writes because publishing means appearing in a certain way. But I didn’t want my appearance to be framed by the contemporary uses of photography where they show the author writing or in a head shot. So I thought it was very important to exclude all forms of photography and all public images of myself.”—Derrida on his reluctance to be photographed and his insistence that no image of himself would appear on his book covers.

(With apology to Derrida)

Alice C. Linsley

Postmodernism is characterized by a proliferation of philosophical developments that seek to destabilize traditional views, interpretations and values. The “new thought” goes against the notion that words and narratives have a fixed meaning. One of the most important philosophers of Postmodernism was the French Algerian Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Derrida sought to uncover and lift up the underbelly of meaning in myths and texts. He enjoyed making fun of traditional interpretations, yet as he developed his "ontotheology" he concluded that there was something fixed at the metaphysical center. He developed this in his lectures at Villanova University.

Deconstruction reveals a “presence” that has been called by different names throughout history: logos, nous, arche, God, the metaphysical center, etc. However, for Derrida the fixed presence is not a being, but rather a necessary function by which we are able to discover meaning. Here Derrida borrows from Wittgenstein’s idea of a word as a function and Heidegger’s development of Dasein.

Derrida’s deconstruction reveals great complexities of meaning in written texts, ideas, myths and human customs. He explored the “metaphysics of presence.” He wants to know what dominates and blocks what seems not to be present. He ascribes to subordinate objects a more substantial existence than the shadow they cast, or their “trace.” Derrida wrote: "Deconstruction cannot limit itself or proceed immediately to neutralization: it must, by means of a double gesture, a double science, a double writing, practice an overturning of the classical opposition, and a general displacement of the system. It is on that condition alone that deconstruction will provide the means of intervening in the field of oppositions it criticizes" (Metaphysics).

Derrida explores the hidden presence. In so doing, deeper and/or unfamiliar meanings emerge. His method involves neutralizing the shouting voice in order to hear resonances of underlying voices. He looks for Plato behind Aristotle, for mystery behind logic, and for the metaphysical behind the physical. His reversals are a strategic intervention to free western philosophy from the constraints of empiricism, materialism, and linear logic.

Derrida was a master when it came to identifying binary distinctions, such as dominance and subservience, and reversals. In the case of binary oppositions, each component of the binary set means something, and the relationship of the oppositions means something, and the hierarchy exhibited by the set means something. The reversal of the oppositions also means something. The reversal of the subordinated term of an opposition is a significant aspect of Derrida's strategy. In examining a binary opposition and reversals, deconstruction brings to light traces of meaning that cannot be said to be present, but which must have metaphysical existence.

Derrida borrowed the term “deconstruction” from Martin Heidegger. Heidegger exposed the fundamental problem of existence (ontology) or Being as Being (Dasein). He believed the individual’s moral duty is to face one’s non-existence, what he called “negation.” Life involves a dread of death because it means the negation of self or ego. Heidegger believed that authentic being is possible only when the individual faces death as extinction.

While a student, a priest in his Catholic school gave Heidegger a copy of Franz Brentano’s dissertation, titled, On the Manifold Meaning of Being according to Aristotle. Heidegger said it was, “the chief help and guide of my first awkward attempts to penetrate into philosophy.” He recognized, as did Brentano, that “the question of being captivated Aristotle as the single most important question.”

The significance of Heidegger’s work was overlooked by many who viewed him as a Nazi sympathizer because he failed to speak against the Nazi regime. In developing his version of atheistic existentialism, Heidegger drew on Nietzsche’s view that man decides his own values.

Related reading: Jacques Derrida, Villanova Conversations; Derrida's Opposition to Phonocentrism; Divide Opinion as Derrida Did; Levi-Strauss and Derrida on Binary Oppositions; Genesis and Jacques Derrida; Derrida's Style of Writing

Thumbnail Sketch of J.B. Rawls

"Injustice, then, is simply inequalities that are not to the benefit of all."--J.B. Rawls


John B. Rawls (1921-24 November 2002) is recognized as one of the leading political philosophers of the 20th century. He was born in Baltimore in 1921 and went to Princeton as an undergraduate. He considered entering the Episcopal priesthood, but lost his faith after his war experiences in the Pacific in World War II. He taught at Harvard for more than 30 years. Among his students are some accomplished American philosophers, including Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Nagel, Onora O'Neill, Christine Korsgaard, and Susan Neiman.

Rawls’s first book was A Theory of Justice published in 1971. Nearly 600 pages long, it has been translated into 27 languages. Rawls claimed to have articulated a theory of justice which is genuinely universal and acceptable from our present, pluralistic, political perspective. His book has greatly influenced political theory. A few regard his experiment as pernicious.

Two of Rawls's brothers died in childhood because they had contracted fatal illnesses from him. In 1928, at age 7, John contracted diphtheria. His younger brother Bobby visited him in his room and was infected and died. The next winter, John contracted pneumonia. Another younger brother, Tommy, caught the illness from him and died." Rawls' biographer Thomas Pogge calls the loss of his two brothers the "most important events in Jack’s childhood." The unfairness of these tragic deaths certainly caused Rawls to ponder the nature of fairness and justice.

Rawls's theory of justice is posed as an alternative to the utilitarian approach that holds that the best consequences indicate the best political choices. In his book A Theory of Justice (1971), Rawls wrote “Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. Therefore, in a just society the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or the calculus of social interests” (A Theory of Justice, p. 66).

Rawls proposed a social contract approach to justice that revolves around three principles: (1) each individual is to have equal right to the greatest personal liberty that is compatible with like liberty for all; and (2) social and economic inequalities are to be attached to public positions that are open to all under conditions of fairness in opportunity. Rawls also stated that when these principles are in conflict, the first principle must take priority.

Rawls accepts that there will always be some economic differences in society. He is not a Marxian. His concern is that those who are at the bottom should never be allowed to sink below the level of basic material needs. Fairness of opportunity requires consideration of those in society whose abilities may be such that they remain the least fortunate. To prevent extreme poverty, he developed a third principle which he called the “difference principle”.

Using the difference principle, Rawls hoped to minimize wealth differences by insisting that inequalities in basic goods can be allowed only if distribution of primary goods first benefits the poorest. He argued that the welfare of society depends on the welfare of the poorest, and that a just society makes fairness to all a primary consideration when forming public policy.

Rawls’ egalitarian approach to justice is a hypothetical one. It is not so much a philosophy as it is a method for constitution-building. He conducted his thought-experiment with his students at Harvard. Rawls’ method requires that participants forget their economic status, race, gender, level of education, religion, physical and mental abilities, etc. Under this “veil of ignorance”, each is to consider fairness from an “original position”; that is, they must establish a principle of fairness (such as distribution of income) without knowing beforehand where they end up in the pecking order. Rawls believed that nobody would agree to a system that incorporated practices such as slavery or totalitarianism since they themselves might end up a slave or oppressed by government officials. Rawls assumes that participants will always act rationally, and in seeking their best self-interest under the veil of ignorance, they actually will be seeking the best interest of all.

Rawls’ thought experiment operates on the assumptions that democracy is the best system, that people should vote, and that private property in not an inalienable right (against John Locke). His primary concern is justice. Rawls defends a welfare form of democracy on the basis of his belief that a just society requires that individual’s democratic rights must always take priority over the common good. In his view that there is a fixed point of reference by which to decide justice, Rawls follows the deontological ethics of Immanuel Kant.

Another view of how humans act in their own self-interest was developed by the Russian novelist Ayn Rand in her famous book The Fountainhead (1943). The title is a reference to Rand's statement that “man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress”. In this book, and in her later volume Atlas Shrugged (1957), Rand lays down the ethical principle of rational self-interest that would become the basis for Objectivism. She argues that rational selfishness is a virtue and that this virtue can be developed only by those who autonomously develop their own code of values and conduct.


J.B. Rawls' Quotes:

"Certainly it is wrong to be cruel to animals and the destruction of a whole species can be a great evil. The capacity for feelings of pleasure and pain and for the form of life of which animals are capable clearly impose duties of compassion and humanity in their case."

"My aim is to present a conception of justice which generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract as found, say, in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. In order to do this we are not to think of the original contract as one to enter a particular society or to set up a particular form of government. Rather, the guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement. They are the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association. These principles are to regulate all further agreements; they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into and the forms of government that can be established. This way of regarding the principles of justice I shall call justice as fairness. ... ""I shall now state in a provisional form the two principles of justice that I believe would be chosen in the original position. ... The first statement of the two principles reads as follows.

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.

Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.

There are two ambiguous phrases in the second principle, namely 'everyone's advantage' and 'open to all.'

By way of general comment, these principles primarily apply, as I have said, to the basic structure of society. They are to govern the assignment of rights and duties and to regulate the distribution of social and economic advantages. As their formulation suggests, these principles presuppose that the social structure can be divided into two more or less distinct parts, the first principle applying to the one, the second to the other. They distinguish between those aspects of the social system that define and secure the equal liberties of citizenship and those that specify and establish social and economic inequalities. The basic liberties of citizens are, roughly speaking, political liberty (the right to vote and to be eligible for public office) together with freedom of speech and assembly; liberty of conscience and freedom of thought; freedom of the person along with the right to hold (personal) property; and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the concept of the rule of law. These liberties are all required to be equal by the first principle, since citizens of a just society are to have the same basic rights.

The second principle applies, in the first approximation, to the distribution of income and wealth and to the design of organizations that make use of differences in authority and responsibility, or chains of command. While the distribution of wealth and income need not be equal, it must be to everyone's advantage, and at the same time, positions of authority and offices of command must be accessible to all. One applies the second principle by holding positions open, and then, subject to this constraint, arranges social and economic inequalities so that everyone benefits.

These principles are to be arranged in a serial order with the first principle prior to the second. This ordering means that a departure from the institutions of equal liberty required by the first principle cannot be justified by, or compensated for, by greater social and economic advantages. The distribution of wealth and income, and the hierarchies of authority, must be consistent with both the liberties of equal citizenship and equality of opportunity.

It is clear that these principles are rather specific in their content, and their acceptance rests on certain assumptions that I must eventually try to explain and justify. A theory of justice depends upon a theory of society in ways that will become evident as we proceed. For the present, it should be observed that the two principles (and this holds for all formulations) are a special case of a more general conception of justice that can be expressed as follows.

All social values—liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect— are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to everyone's advantage."


Related reading: J.B. Rawls' "Original Position"

Thumbnail Sketch of Ayn Rand

"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values."-- Ayn Rand


Alice C. Linsley


Ayn Rand watched her family suffer the loss of everything under Stalin and this shaped her political views for the rest of her life. She hated the repression of Russian dissidents, many of whom were clergy, yet she fully embraced atheism. She hung out with Hollywood people and believed that you had to write on the edge, be advant-garde, to get attention. She hated government intrusion in personal affairs, yet she testified against Hollywood communists before the U.S. Senate. She hated logical fallacies, like ad hominem, yet she used it liberally against those she disliked.

Rand (1905-1985) was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. At age six she taught herself to read and at the age of nine, she decided to make fiction writing her career. She was opposed to the mysticism and collectivism of Russian culture.

During her high school years, she witnessed the Kerensky Revolution, which she supported, and the Bolshevik Revolution, which she denounced. In order to escape the fighting, her family went to the Crimea. After the Communist victory her father's pharmacy was confiscated and her family faced periods of near-starvation. When introduced to American history in her last year of high school, she took America as her model of what a nation of free citizens could be.

She entered the University of Petrograd to study philosophy and history and graduated in 1924. She experienced the takeover of the university by communist thugs. She entered the State Institute for Cinema Arts in 1924 to study screenwriting, something that would serve her well after her arrival in the United States. She had booklets on actress Pola Negri (1925) and “Hollywood: American Movie City” (1926) published. Both were reprinted in 1999 in Russian Writings on Hollywood.

In February 1926 Rand left Soviet Russia for a visit to relatives in Chicago. Although she told Soviet authorities that her visit would be short, she was determined never to return to Russia. She spent the next six months in Chicago, obtained an extension to her visa, and then left for Hollywood to pursue a career as a screenwriter.

On Ayn Rand’s second day in Hollywood, Cecil B. DeMille saw her standing at the gate of his studio, offered her a ride to the set of his movie The King of Kings, and gave her a job, first as an extra, then as a script reader. During the next week at the studio, she met an actor, Frank O’Connor, whom she married in 1929; they were married until his death fifty years later.

Her novels include We the Living (1936), The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), Rand's last work of fiction. In her work she dramatized her philosophy in an intellectual mystery that integrated ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, and economics. She also wrote a numbe of shorter pieces including The Husband I Bought (1926); The Night King (1926); Her Second Career (1929) and Red Pawn (1931-32).

Rand wrote and lectured on her philosophy Objectivism, which she characterized as “a philosophy for living on earth." She died in 1982 in her New York City apartment.


Quotes:

About C.S. Lewis, Rand wrote, "This is really an old fool – and nothing more!" Her ad hominem attack was not a reaction to Lewis the man, who she had never met. Rand hated his Christian apologetics.

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."

"Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."

"Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth."

"Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice."

"God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive."

"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values."


Related reading: Notes: Ayn Rand and Ethical Egoism; Ethics of the 20th Century; Ayn Rand Really, Really Hated C.S. Lewis

Why You Have to Love David Hume

David Hume

Alice C. Linsley


David Hume (1711-1776)

Naturalism, Empiricism, Skepticism; theses terms come to mind when one considers David Hume, the very remarkable philosopher and historian of the 18th century.

Hume was a brilliant Scottish thinker who lived for a time in France. One of his close friends was a fellow Scotsman Adam Smith who is considered the founder of modern economics. Hume also produced some writings on monetary theory.

David Hume has been called "the Skeptic's Skeptic" because of his empirical approach and insistence that there is a natural explanation for almost all observable phenomena. Although Hume leaves open the possibility of miracles as singular events, he offers arguments against their historicity. He notes that miracles seem to occur among the ignorant and superstitious, not in civilized societies which, informed by empiricism, know that most phenomena have a natural explanation.

Hume also notes that people have good reasons to lie about miracles occurring either because they believe they are doing so for the benefit of their religion or because of the fame that results. People enjoy relating miracles without checking their veracity and thus accounts of miracles are easily transmitted even when unverified or false. Hume also believed that the miracles of each religion argue against all other religions and their miracles, and so even if a proportion of all reported miracles appear to be substantiated empirically, the miracles cannot logically be considered conclusive.

George Berkeley had asserted that God's existence is a question of fact; that is, either God exists or God does not exist. Such a question can only be resolved on the basis of observational evidence. Hume insisted that God's existence has not observational evidence. The most that can be said is that the order in nature could be explained by the existence of an Intelligent Being.

Hume is often labeled an agnostic or an atheist. However, today he might have more in common with the Intelligent Design school of thought. Hume wrote, “the whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the principles of genuine Theism and Religion” (Natural History of Religion 134).


Hume's Writings

David Hume penned what is still considered one of the greatest works on the History of Great Britain. He was a man who enjoyed lengthy conversations with friends on virtually every topic and these conversation stimulated his writing.

Hume’s writings stirred Immanuel Kant from his “dogmatic slumbers” around 1770. Kant produced his greatest work in reaction to Hume. Although the two great thinkers did not agree on many points, they both placed a high value on reason and evidence. Kant defined the Enlightenment by the motto Sapere aude ("Dare to Know") and wrote, “Have the courage to use your own understanding; this is the motto of the Enlightenment.”

Hume's key works are A Treatise on Human Nature (1739-40) which was published anonymously when he was only 28, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779). In his forties he wrote a six-volume History of England (1754-62) and this work established him as an historian.

In his last years, Hume revised his works for new editions of his Essays and Treatises, which contained his collected essays, the two Enquiries, A Dissertation on the Passions, and The Natural History of Religion. Significantly, he did not revise A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume did not become famous for his philosophical works until after his death in 1776.

Hume believed that truth claims must be based up by material evidence and that much of what we accept in our ordinary lives has no basis in empirical observation and verification. He insisted that unless a truth claim can be demonstrated to be universally the case, it cannot be said to be "true" empirically. Hume's thinking encouraged the early development of the social sciences anthropology, sociology and psychology.


Related reading:  David Hume: A Short Biography; Kant and Hume on Causality

A Thumbnail Sketch of Jeremy Bentham

Alice C. Linsley

Jeremy Bentham, the "father" of utilitarian ethics, was a lawyer who distrusted lawyers. He was a man of his time in that he believed that many social problems could be solved by the exercise of reason on the part of law makers.

Bentham's Auto-icon

(1748-1832)

Bentham was born in London and educated at Oxford. He studied law, following in the steps of his lawyer father. His attitude toward the law was paradoxical. He said, "Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished." At the same time, Bentham appreciated the skill of a good attorney to clarify the intention of a law and to question its utility. He said, "The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law."

A similar cynicism about lawyers was expressed by the 4th century Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus who wrote, "Some lawyers preserve an austere silence to hide their ignorance of the law; others charge their clients every time they yawn; others, if the name of a famous writer is mentioned, think that it is a foreign word for a type of fish or some other sort of food (Ammianus Marcellinus 30.4.8ff.).

In Bentham's thinking, a good lawyer regards the interests of the individual to be one with society. He believed this kind of lawyer serving in Parliament provided the best form of governance.

Bentham's key works are A Fragment on Government (1776), Defence of Usury (1787), and An Introduction to the Principles and Morals of Legislation. In Defence of Usury, Bentham shows himself to be a disciple of the economist Adam Smith who argued that the individual's interest is often also the best interest of the community and the society. Bentham held that each individual was the best judge of his own advantage, that it was desirable from the public point of view that he should seek it without hindrance, and that there was no reason to limit the application of this doctrine in the matter of lending money at interest.

In his book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) Bentham defined the principle of utility as “that property in any object whereby it tends to produce pleasure, good or happiness, or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered.” Mankind, he said, is governed by two sovereign motives, pain and pleasure; and the principle of utility recognized this state of affairs. The object of all legislation must be the “greatest happiness of the greatest number.” He deduced from the principle of utility that, since all punishment involves pain and is therefore evil, it ought only to be used “so far as it promises to exclude some greater evil.”

Bentham founded the Westminster Review in 1823 along with James Mill (father of John Stuart Mill). He also founded University College London where his auto-icon may be seen on special occasions.


Related reading:  Jeremy Bentham; My Argument With Bentham's View of Incarceration

George Berkeley: Idealist and Consistent Empiricist

George Berkeley quotes

Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners.

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

George Berkeley

George Berkeley (1685 - 1753) was the oldest son of an English settler in Ireland. At age fifteen he entered Trinity College, Dublin. He completed his master's degree in 1707. In 1709 he was ordained deacon in the Anglican Church. From 1735 until his death Berkeley was Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland.

Berkeley had established himself as a great thinker by his early twenties. All the philosophical works which made him famous were published between 1709 and 1713. These works are An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713). These three books contain the essential elements of Berkeley's immaterialism, a view which he held with minor modification to the end of his life.

In 1728 Berkeley married the daughter of the chief justice of Ireland and departed for America with three companions.

At the time of Berkeley's visit to New England there was no Anglican bishop in the colonies, and Berkeley was the highest ranking Anglican clergyman to venture to the British colonies. Berkeley was also the first philosopher of any note to visit America. As such, he had considerable influence on the philosophical life of the colonies. The first serious criticism of Berkeley's immaterialism came from the Connecticut clergyman and philosopher, Samuel Johnson, who met Berkeley in Newport and corresponded with him for many years. Johnson eventually became a convert to immaterialism, and later became the first president of Columbia University in New York. Johnson also wrote the first American philosophy textbook, Elementa Philosophica, which was published by Benjamin Franklin in 1752, It was dedicated to George Berkeley.

During most of his time in America, Berkeley devoted himself to study, preached occasionally, and wrote his Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher. His hope to plant a college in the Colonies never came to fruition. Although Berkeley's plans to convert the savages and increase Christian learning in the colonies had failed, he maintained a lively interest in education in America. On his departure he left his farm, house, and library to Yale. On several occasions, he donated books to both Yale and Harvard. Berkeley in California is named for him.

Berkeley’s central principle of his philosophy is that ideas do not exist outside of a mind perceiving them. This also is an intuitive kind of truth: when I say that an object exists, I mean that I can feel it, that I can see it, or that it is perceived by another mind. As a result, for Berkeley it is impossible to conceive of an absolute and independent reality; esse est percipi (“to be is to be perceived”). The “esse” or being of the object is in its “percipi” or being perceived. Therefore we can only speak of things to the extent that they are in direct relationship with our mind.

Related reading:  Berkeley's Life and Works