“The way one should use the I Ching” and other ancient texts, “It is not simply a matter of blindly following the oracle, but rather understanding one’s place in the situation.”(I Ching, p.165) For what is right for one person at a given time, may not be for another, or even the same person at another time. The signs may seem to say go forward or retreat, but it is in knowing oneself and reading those signs that one understands when to take this advice and when to leave it. Self-knowledge helps us understand what the voices of wisdom all around us are saying…because the universe speaks to us all, though not all can hear. It guides, it does not dictate. And our job is to listen well, because sometimes, “from a small clue one should be aware of what is coming.”(I Ching, p.44)
For instance, the I Ching and other ancient literature often say one should refrain from speaking, but this “does not mean that one should stop talking, but instead refers to knowing when and where to talk and when and where to stop talking,” so to “choose his words correctly” and carefully, and thus “be responsible for what he says.” Confucius shows how and why each step in the path feeds the next: “In his treatise The Great Learning,” he says: “The way of the Great Learning is to illustrate brilliant virtue, to love people, and to rest in conduct that is perfectly good. By knowing how to keep still, one is able to determine what objects he should pursue. By knowing what objects he should pursue, one is able to attain calmness of mind. By knowing how to attain calmness of mind, one is able to succeed in tranquil repose. By knowing how to succeed in tranquil repose, one is able to obtain careful deliberation. By knowing how to obtain careful deliberation, one is able to harvest what he really wants to pursue.”(I Ching, p. 417)
“As we get to know ourselves more fully we get to understand ourselves…to like ourselves. We get closer to our real selves.” And only “then, because it is our nature, we start to love ourselves.”(p. 14) For “we cannot truly love others unless we love ourselves.” (Manitonquat, OI, 14) And so “as we have seen that must begin with respect.”(Manitonquat, OI, 14) And self-respect at that.
As the oracle's dictum proclaimed, "Know thyself." "At the heart ... of the doctrine was the insistence upon the supreme duty of 'tending the soul' and making it as perfect as possible. By this Plato meant that it is man's obligation to know, to grasp the meaning of the world rationally, and to manage his conduct in accordance with that insight."(Plato, Collected Dialogues, pp.xx-xxi)
NOTES:
Good Character and Unity of the Virtues: They understood that GOOD CHARACTER = ‘Unity of the Virtues’= which makes these all the same virtue – they are how good character behaves in different circumstances - that is, in situations of injustice, temptation, danger, and ignorance. The ancient Greeks would say that TRUE HAPPINESS comes from TRUE CHARACTER. Which is to say, JUSTICE + TEMPERANCE + COURAGE + WISDOM (Serenity Prayer b/c these are all the same thing = good character/judgment, just show up differently in different circumstances) = HAPPINESS Cratylus 415d that 'vice' has to do with impeding "the stream of the good soul," whereas 'virtue' involves "ease of motion."
“The wise, to be wise, must also be just.” (OI, Adamson, 35)
Mind and Body Health
So much depends on how we learn to look at the relationship between mind and body. Some people think the job of the mind is to keep the body alive, and so think an education is for the purpose of feeding, sheltering, and pleasure the body. Others think the job of the body is to keep the mind alive, so that it might grow and advance in understanding as far as possible in the course of a single lifetime. Both are true, as mind and body have a reciprocal relationship. If Aristotle was correct, then each serves the other, and soul emerges from the union of the two. Perhaps youth would seem to be more fun for the former, but (I’m here to tell you) old age is more enjoyable for the latter – when the mind can enjoy what it has learned, even grow and improve, even as the body languishes.
“Such a person knows a kind of ‘healing art’, Socrates says, b/c “the sound mind has the power in itself to make the bodily condition as perfect as it can be.”(*)
As Chief * Lyons put it, in his language, “health and peace are the same thing.”(OI, Lyons, 63)
“To the ancient Chinese…moral strength was more important and powerful than physical strength…only moral strength could radiate its brilliance and be everlasting.”(I Ching, p.290) Accordingly, Plato’s oligarchic family thought him foolish for not taking up the political power he was offered, but after all, they are all forgotten, while here we are still inspired by Plato’s virtuous writing today.
So, how to be Happy in Old Age?: Plato’Republic: Justice in the soul = personal excellence is the secret to being happy in old age Socrates thought that philosophy was the special purview of the golden years because by then we are likely to have sufficient freedom from other pressing concerns and the demands of the body (both sexual and economic) to think well and freely about higher level needs. Naturally, we become more aware of the inner workings of our minds as we have more time to think about our lives, what we’ve learned, who we have become, and how we feel about it all, for better or worse. So our senior years can be a time when we live out our dreams and enjoy the heavenly fruits of living well. Or they can be a time when, like chickens coming home to roost, we find ourselves living in a soiled nest. As it has been said, “Hell is your life gone wrong.”
So…How to be happy in old age? The question Socrates and his friends (among them, Plato’s older brothers, take up in Plato’s masterwork, the Republic, is the same one we are all always asking, in one form or another – how to be happy in old age? Socrates recounts this discussion the next day for some of his older friends, in part to help them learn from their younger betters. They know it has something to do with wealth, for this insures security, which is necessary to all else. It’s true that the body must be sustained in order for the mind to grow. But does it matter, Socrates asks, how we got our money - justly or unjustly? Some say (though maybe not the wise among us) that it doesn’t matter, for creating the mere appearance of justice is all that really matters, because it is enough to bring us the extrinsic benefits of being a good person in others eyes, without having to actually become so. All it takes is the mere appearance of being good to win others praise and avoid their blame and punishment, so what does it matter if we know ourselves to be less than just? Even and especially a scoundrel can create the appearance of being good and just, for the same reason wolves might wear sheep’s clothing – to win the trust they can then exploit. To this end, what matters is not who we really are (the scoundrel Thrasymachus claims), but only how we appear in others eyes. To be really effective, the devil’s first task is to simply to seem good. Indeed, some might say that too many too often use religion in this way – to create the mere appearance of being good in others eyes. Hence, the reason overt religious gestures are so hard to trust. – they are only borrowed plumage, meant to hide and disguise the truth. (And how convenient when religion also rationalizes this as if it were our very nature – born sinners, subject to original sin. So we can hardly be blamed for being anything other than unjust at heart, after all, for we are born this way, we are told, and have no real choice in the matter. So we cover our naked egoism with false altruism, and are told by many religions that this is enough, indeed, the best we can do. So it comes as no surprise how inauthentic our religions become, when our belief is that mere pretense of our purpose. But nothing is a true good that is only a means to another end, rather than an end in itself. Whereas true spirituality involves true justice in the soul, religion easily becomes the mere appearance of being good. And since true happiness depends on true justice in the soul, then those who seek only the appearance of justice, get only the appearance of happiness as their just due. Glaucon has been taught, like his younger brother Plato, to think that justice has only instrumental value, and has no intrinsic value whatsoever. There is no point in being just or good, he tells it, except when others are looking, for it is only to fool others that we need bother being just at all - that is, so that we can get away with whatever we want when they’re not looking. That’s what some say, Glaucon laments, and begs Socrates to convince them if it isn’t true – and if justice has any intrinsic value at all. Why be truly good, after all, if all that matters is appearing good in the eyes of the gods and other men? Socrates agrees that many believe this, but then many are also unhappy…so they might not be the best judges. In fact, Aristotle later argues, “the pleasure of a just person can never be understood by one who is not just.” So an unjust person, while he might call himself happy, actually doesn’t know what he’s talking about because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. In other words, one without true self-respect themselves doesn’t know what they’re missing, or how much true happiness depends on it. So you see, Socrates says, your own eyes do matter for your own happiness and confidence depends on what you see when you look inward. Again, we might call what we feel happy, just as we can say we have self-respect – but this doesn’t make it true. And really, what good are we doing ourselves with this pretense, since we don’t really have anything to compare it to, so we don’t really know what we’re talking about. We have to live with our selves, one way or another, and try as we might, we cannot run away from our sins. So we will live out the inner consequences of knowing ourselves to be whoever we prove to ourselves – just or unjust, honor-worthy or not? For just as we don’t respect others who are unjust, we are unlikely to respect ourselves either…if this is who we have chosen to become. This is why, Socrates can confidently say, “only the just are happy, and injustice will involve unhappiness.” For true happiness is reserved for the deserving…and only those who have experienced both senses of the word – that is, higher and lower happiness – only this person can tell the difference. And Aristotle adds, there are no short cuts, the only way to be a good person is to be a good person. As Aristotle credits Plato with having been the first to see and say, “to be good is to be happy.” So try it yourself, Socrates says, then judge for yourself. See if first understanding, and then actualizing the true sense of these terms – justice, happiness, good - doesn’t make you happier. Justice in the Soul: Socrates asked his aging friends (in the first pages of Plato’s Republic) what they have learned about how to be truly happy in old age? The answer (seven or eight chapters later) was that we must live up to our higher potentials for justice in the soul which can be done…if we aren’t misguided by bad lessons early on. For if we learn to be good only when others are looking, we’re not likely to be happy with the view of ourselves from inside. "Justice is produced in the soul, like health in the body, by establishing the elements concerned in their natural relations of control and subordination, whereas injustice is like disease and means that this natural order is inverted."[RepC p.143]
"[T]o declare that justice pays is to assert that all our words and actions should tend towards giving the man within us complete mastery over the whole human creature, and letting him take the many-headed beast under his care and tame its wildness, like the gardener who trains his cherished plants while he checks the growth of weeds."[RepC p.317]
"[T]he phrase [master of oneself] means that within the man himself, in his soul, there is a better part and a worse; and that he is his own master when the part which is better by nature has the worse under its control."[RepC p.124]
“Only when he has linked these parts together in well-tempered harmony and has made himself one man instead of many, will he be ready to go about whatever he may have to do, whether it be making money and satisfying bodily wants, or business transactions, or the affairs of state... Any action which tends to break down this habit will be for him unjust; and the notions governing it he will call ignorance and folly..."[RepC p.142]
Right thing at the right time for the right reason…
Let’s ask their advice, as we would if we actually wanted to know what’s good for us. What practical advice do these offer for solving the practical problems of living? What do these recommendations have in common with other wisdom traditions? What would they have us remember? The sages of the ages understood philosophy to be a journey, a quest for self-knowledge and mutual understanding, and the most practical and therapeutic of all kinds of knowledge. (*=> self-knowledge, small-p philosophy) This practical wisdom was meant for our use in solving problems, not to be kept on library shelves, but for our daily practice as we face and master the inevitable and ongoing struggles of our lives, so to move along up our path well prepared for what’s to come. (*=>struggles, trials, journey) practical reason…” that demands that the thinker look at the outcomes.” (OI, Mohawk, 130) “The concept of outcome” and consequences requires “that you look far into the future and ask…what is this going to do in the future?” (OI, Mohawk, 131) (*=>connect future consequences, heading – on future vision? Turns a critical eye on reductionist science, which lacks humility), “By living in harmony and developing a respect of all living things Indigenous Peoples developed a symbiotic relationship with nature.”(OI, Settee, 44) And they did this by thinking dynamically, looking into the future, keeping “their eyes on the time horizon of seven generations.” (OI, Nelson, xxi)
Seeing life as spanned from past to future life, b/c both depend on you here and now to act, karma, action to plant the seeds of) Because actions are seeds… “the actions that you have today will impact your children’s, childrens’, children seven times over.” (OI, Thomas-Muller, 242) (*=> grandparents…prepare to be ancestors, karma from generation to generation) This seems to be what Gandhi meant when he said we must "Be the change you want to see in the world"?
the Greeks considered the most excellent state of the human faculties to be practical reason, which helps us to choose always the mean between the acceptable extremes, What these wisdom traditions sought to pass on to us was practical reason, skills that solve problems and insights that answer to the questions that all human lives encounter, and that most plague our age. Contrary to popular conceptions of philosophy, as the ancients understood it, philosophy seeks useful answers to real life questions, practical solutions to the actual problems of living and learning. In this sense, philosophy is purposeful, which is to say, it is an actual skill that aims to be of use to all who take it seriously. Not merely as an academic subject, but as a personal coping tool that can be a lifelong guide for the well-being of our psyche (the Greek word for soul).
As a favorite author recently put it, the world is full of mysteries, and we can’t learn them all at once.’(Brown) You might think that’s the bad news, but closer to the truth, learning turns out to be the greatest of life’s intrinsic goods, and so it’s a true blessing if the process never ends. It’s only bad news for those who come to think they are finished prematurely, and then spend their lives in utter boredom and even depression, not realizing that curiosity, empathy, humility – these are all cures they carry within them. (*=> can’t learn all at once, not bad news, lifelong learning is a blessing…)
It would do us all good to develop an appreciation of how all people in all thoughtful cultures find and share answers to the same problems, serve the same needs, and search for solutions to the same practical concerns of surviving and living well. Understanding that there is struggle and suffering to be endured in every journey, we can see why we must be helped when we are young to learn the tools of practical wisdom we will need along the way.
For a person of good character will need all these skills – the virtues of temperance, courage, justice, and wisdom, which we need in situations of temptation, danger, injustice, and ignorance. In that these involved the proper development of the most excellent of human faculties, they were valuable ends in themselves. And so our toolbox must be filled with all the wisdom of the ages from early on. They understood that the proper function and highest potential of the human mind was to actualize these virtues – to learn to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason. (*=> connect unity of virtues)
Practical wisdom habituates excellence in deliberation, meaning correctness of reasoning which attains what is good and leads to true conviction.[VI.9,1142b20]
To be excellent, or as the ancients called it, to be virtuous, is to actualize our highest potentials, and in the process contribute to the higher function of the whole. It is on this that our personal happiness depends. “To be good is to be happy,” as Aristotle said Plato was the first to say. (*=>)
Because what the ancients offered us was practical wisdom, it is only ever truly understood by putting it into practice. Theoretical wisdom is a necessary part of full intelligence, but only experience gives us an eye with which we can see things as they really are, and as they could be. (*=>)
Practical reason "is concerned with human affairs and with matters about which deliberation is possible."[VI. 7,1141a9] As Aristotle emphasized, practical wisdom "deals with things that can be other than they are."[VI.5,1140b27] Which is to say, our power to turn what is into what could be, to realize ideals, and to actualize our higher human potentials. So only those with both, theoretical and practical wisdom, "have the capacity of seeing what is good for themselves and for mankind."[1] And both are necessary for true intelligence of what the ancients call simply the whole truth. the whole truth about anything requires our stretching to include as many of those perspectives as are relevant and necessary to reach understanding. just as the body grows, so too does the mind by gradual inclusion of what is revealed in understanding the cumulative nature of truth. (*=> connect mind grows)
Living things have a point of view all their own to be considered, and just as we would have others understand us, so we have something to learn from everyone else, every voice, if understanding the whole truth is our goal. For this reason, dialogue is an art we all need to understand and practice better than is our modern habit, in our relationships as well a in our education. (*=> inside out, inside-out, infinity)
We need only experience it to truly understand that we’ve had this capacity all along. Like love – we may have difficulty putting ideals and concepts like true character, virtue, intelligence, wealth, and true power into words, but we know it when we experience it. And this is the gnosis of a joyful life.
Practical wisdom shares the same sphere of dominion with understanding [synesis], However, understanding only judges, while practical wisdom issues commands for action.[VI.10,1143a15] Practical wisdom exhibits good sense, a forgiving and mature intelligence, that is, a sympathetic understanding of the problems of others and a true sense of what is fair.
This is why the golden rule is an exercise in practical wisdom, not merely theoretical knowledge, but practical wisdom, skills and insights that answer to the very challenges that most plague our lives, indeed, our age...as much in modern as in ancient times, and perhaps more urgent now than ever.
They knew that the proper function and highest potential of the human mind was to actualize these virtues - that we might learn to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason. This they called practical wisdom (phronesis).
Ancient philosophers did not see practical wisdom as contrary to or in competition with theoretical wisdom, but rather as complementary to it. But "Truth is the function of both."[VI.2,1139b11-13] Aristotle distinguishes practical wisdom [phronesis] from theoretical wisdom [sophia], arguing that these are excellences of different parts of the soul.[VI.11,1143b15]
Happiness is acquired only by making virtuous (excellent) action a habit. And what begins with individuals actualizing their unique potentials could very quickly become the rebirth of human excellence on a very large scale. (*=>just the surge we need) Just as what began as slow change in polluting the paradise we’ve enjoyed could very quickly become hell on earth for our children, their children, and generations yet to be born…or never to be born. (*<= connect intro crisis weather etc.)
They understood that we need both theoretical and practical wisdom to be happy. practical wisdom [phronesis] is especially concerned with “the things that make a man happy,”[VI.12,1143b20] and is therefore necessary to virtue. Which is why Aristotle considered this the highest form of knowledge, since "to be happy is to be good."[2]
they knew then, apparently better than we do today, that explicit codes of ethical conduct make it all too easy to simply fake being a good person. Many can go through the motions, as wolves in sheep’s clothing, without understanding why or having developed any of the qualities of character that a true hero learns in the course of applying principles to action. There are no shortcuts. As Aristotle made clear, “the only way to become a good person is to become a good person.” The fact is, moral self-evaluation is sufficiently complex that there can be no once-and-for-all set of rules or decision procedures, no code or commandments to follow. Moral qualities are acquired by choosing to balance action between the alternatives of excess and deficiency, that is by finding the mean, which is the highest point of excellence, and then by habituating the our action to our ideal. In other words, This is why theoretical wisdom is not sufficient; we must also have practical wisdom that comes of applying theory to practice. (*=> virtue ethics, golden mean, wolves)
Considering there is no ideal more closely associated with our classical origins than practical reason, it has been curiously neglected in the modern practice of what we call Philosophy. For this reason, I began this project with the purpose of showing philosophy to be the practical and valuable skill that it truly is -- or rather, was, when it was still understood in its original sense – what I call small-p philosophy.
Started as a resource for students and clients, grew into a dialogue around a campfire (*<=)
the ancients understood that multiple perspectives add depth to our understanding in the same way that a second eye adds depth to our vision – a metaphor about which we should often be reminded. So they argued not merely to win, but to understand one another. (*=> win, eye) This is why small-p philosophy ought to be central to education. - because the truth stays true; indeed, that is the good thing about it - it waits for us to find it, with or without the help of an inspired guide. (*=> what stays true)
It seems clear that the search for truth must involve both Philosophy (i.e. the actual historic dialogue that illuminates the theoretical wisdom of history’s greatest thinkers) and philosophy (i.e. the art and practice of dialogue that makes the subject of practical benefit to us, individually collectively). (*=>)
We remember these great teachers because they help us to remember to choose the path of excellence over the path of least resistance. (*=>)
We seem to think we have to choose between the ideals as excellence and equality, but the truth is that we are equally endowed with the potential for excellence, though our paths will be unique, and some paths may face obstacles that prevent our actualizing those potentials. (*=>)
But there are many paths to the same summit, as the Vedic Hindu put it, and so many ways to reach the personal excellence that is our unique, but universal, potential. To the extent that we can learn from each of these cultures, we do so best if we put them into dialogue. Together, they offer practical wisdom for the sake of mastering life’s inevitable struggles and intelligent solutions for resolving the problems and conflicts inherent in every life. (*=>)
when we talk about ‘the wisdom of the ancients,’ we mean the best of them, not the rest of them. Those we have the most to learn from are distinguished by the wealth of practical wisdom they’ve passed forward. There are, as it turns out, some ancient traditions that have adhered to this law of nature more earnestly, and are thus more worthy of our limited time and attention than some others. (*=>)
We can see the synchronicity between these wisdom traditions best by way of the ubiquitous golden rule. The ancients taught that the way of the upward path was to always treat others as we would have them treat us, i.e. justly, fairly. It was passed on for the practical benefit of their young by every worthy wisdom tradition the world has known. So I focus here on those that prove their worth in the most practical terms. These include Primal and Indigenous cultures, Vedic Hindu, early Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, Greek and Gnostic - all pre-Christian cultures (though there is considerable evidence that Jesus himself learned from them all).(*=>)
While this healing dialogue can only begin with individuals, our educational methods can offer the setting and incentive by which we all might recall how ancient dialectic wisdom gives rise to the deep and mutual respect and understanding that can make friendship and mutual understanding a way of life. (*connect Socratic relationships…)
great hope for humanity, including practical advice about how to rise above the challenges of our age.
Practical reason is an art we would do well to remember, but one that requires a better understanding of that nature within which we are nested, indeed, the nature of change itself. For everything living is always changing, always either getting better or getting worse, either toward or away from its higher potentials. There is no denying that we all have both, divine and diabolical potentials. The choice is ours, and we actualize it one step at a time. For as Confucius said, 'what is distant lies in what is near.' (*repeated later…connect next step at conclusion to end…?)
practical reason itself, which constitutes "a search for dike, as the Greeks would call it." Which is to say, for ‘moral justice and order, "for right relation, balance, proportion...which is, perhaps, as close as we can come to knowing the essence of the enterprise of education."[3]
This practical application of philosophy as a tool for living well is precisely what ancient philosophers argued ought to be the foundation of any genuine understanding of human well being. But it has been neglected as a tool for practical wisdom, (arguably since it died with free speech in the third and fourth centuries AD). (*and needs a surge of creativity…)
“Such a person knows a kind of ‘healing art’, Socrates says, b/c “the sound mind has the power in itself to make the bodily condition as perfect as it can be.”(*)
[1] (Aristotle n.d., VI.5,1140b5-10) In Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes practical wisdom [phronesis] from theoretical wisdom [sophia], arguing that these are excellences of different parts of the soul.[VI.11,1143b15] "Truth is the function of both … Therefore, those characteristics which permit each part to be as truthful as possible will be the virtues of the two parts."[VI.2,1139b11-13] Theoretical wisdom may seem "the better part of the soul,"[VI.13,1144b8] if only because it "grasps necessary and permanent truths," [i.e. universals]. But practical wisdom is especially concerned with “the things that make a man happy,”[VI.12,1143b20] and is therefore necessary to virtue. It "is concerned with human affairs and with matters about which deliberation is possible."[VI. 7,1141a9] Since "no one deliberates about things that cannot be other than they are or about actions that he cannot perform,"[VI.4,1140a33] practical wisdom "deals with things that can be other than they are."[VI.5,1140b27] Practical wisdom then is a virtue of that part which forms opinions,[VI.4,1140a25-26] "It is a truthful characteristic of acting rationally in matters good and bad for man..."[VI.5,1140b5] Only those with "practical wisdom...have the capacity of seeing what is good for themselves and for mankind...".[1][VI.5,1140b5-10] Practical wisdom involves excellence in deliberation, meaning correctness of deliberation which attains what is good and leads to true conviction.[VI.9,1142b20] Likewise, practical wisdom exhibits good sense, which is to say, a sympathetic understanding and correct sense of what is fair, i.e. a forgiving, mature intelligence. It also shares the same sphere of dominion with understanding [synesis] of practical problems and of others; "understanding...deals with [all such] matters concerning which doubt and deliberation are possible."[VI.10,1143a6] However, understanding only passes judgment, while practical wisdom issues commands for action.[VI.10,1143a15] While we usually think of this deliberation process as concerning our own person, but "surely one's own good cannot exist without household management nor without a (healthy) political system." [VI.8,1141b8-9] Therefore practical wisdom also concerns the state, and it is there called legislation, as "a decree is the last step (in the deliberative process.)"[VI.8,1141b28] Whereas theoretical wisdom is concerned with universals, "practical wisdom is concerned with particulars as well, and knowledge of particulars comes from experience."[VI.8,1142a15] This is why we tend to think that good sense, understanding, and intelligence come by nature, but that theoretical wisdom does not – because only experience gives men an eye with which they can see correctly. "Therefore," he says, "we ought to pay as much attention to the sayings and opinions, undemonstrated though they are, of wise and experienced (people) as we do to demonstrated truths;"[VI.10,1143a13] We need to have both theoretical and practical perspectives on our choices. For example, we need both the universal theoretical wisdom (major premise: that a true friend acts for the other’s good) and the particular practical wisdom (minor premise: that this action is indeed good for the other), in order to come to a correct conclusion (about whether one is acting as a true friend would.) "Virtue determines the end and practical wisdom makes us do what is conducive to the end."[VI. 12,1145a6] "Thought alone moves nothing."[VI.2,1139a36]
[2]Earnest Barker, The Politics of Aristotle (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1946), p. xiv. In Henry B. Veatch, Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), p. 6.
[3]Anderson, p.16.