On modes of intelligence and the adequate idea of philosophy
“But the decision of whether to take on a task to begin with cannot be resolved by the same mode of intelligence that could potentially solve problems associated with its fulfillment...”
People often equate philosophy with “problem-solving.” But there is nothing inherently philosophical about solving problems. Plato even suggests, convincingly, I believe, exactly the opposite in the Parable of the Cave.1 In other words, devotion to philosophy is liable to leave an individual less, and not more capable of solving conventional problems than someone who never bothered to temporarily blind himself by “turning a soul from day that is a kind of night to true day—the ascent to what is, which we say is true philosophy.”2 I expect it is easy to imagine someone spending his whole life solving problems and at the completion of it, find himself no closer to the deeper truths of existence. Indeed, philosophy may be less-equipped to solve problems than to create them by attempting to determine which problems are of value and worth any eventual efforts at solution. On top of the problems that seem to exist, then, philosophy may seem liable to invent an entirely new set of problems by also seeking to discern the relative value of each of them.
But philosophy, properly so called, is not so much distinguished by orientation towards a particular problem set as by the simultaneous operation of a higher form of intelligence. I will attempt to explain this statement. In ordinary consciousness, a problem set is presupposed. The latter being given, a person’s instrumental intelligence—of which we have a share together with many creatures of the natural kingdom, including “the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,”3—is brought at once to bear on it in attempts to arrive at an actionable solution. I will return to the Genesis connection shortly but first I wish to contrast the direct, almost mechanical function of the instrumental intelligence with the function of another, higher kind capable of intelligence that is defined by
its capacity of evaluation and
its capacity for self-reflection.
Whereas the instrumental intelligence sets to work solving problems, through the operation of the higher intelligence, the problem set per se is scrutinized in the light its worth and absolute value. This intelligence might be called “moral” or “philosophical” precisely because it is evaluative and because it weighs questions not merely in the balance of means but the scale of ends—not merely in respect to efficiency but in respect to value and to purpose. Irrespective of what it be called, it clearly represents a different mode of intelligence from the instrumental one.
The result of the scrutiny described above is a transformation of the initial conditions as presented by the first problem set. Such a transformation follows almost invariably for the same reason that scientific riddles in respect to the behavior of Plato’s shadows take on a new cast and stake when weighed against realities.4 Indeed, many problems are almost certain to dissolve or reveal themselves to have been wrought of nothing more than “the baseless fabric of a dream.”5 On a similar note, Whitehead called philosophy “the criticism of abstractions.”6
Whitehead’s definition points at once to the two elements of philosophical itelligence identified above. To wit, its self-reflective power together with its ability to identify hierarchical relations. For this reason, means and end-based reasoning, respectively—which is to say, instrumental and philosophical intelligence—themselves form a natural hierarchy. Ironically, despite that such a hierarchy will be self-evident to anyone capable of exercising the higher reason, it will, per definitionam, escape the one who is unwilling or unable to exercise the only mode of intelligence capable of perceiving it. But to anyone able to contemplate the matter, the hierarchy is axiomatic: the instrumental intelligence is incapable of the critical and reflective activity that is necessary to rule itself and hence it is necessary to enlist the moral or philosophical intelligence to occupy this office.
A statement like this is liable to be met with objection. Plato, for instance, is perennially accused of elitism for the hierarchical state he envisioned in the Republic dialogue. And yet, its “sound and fury” notwithstanding, most of the criticism fails to meet Plato’s argument on the terms on which he is making it and thus remains largely without significance. He states explicitly before beginning to present his outline of the ideal state, that he is speaking about the ideal soul—or more specifically, the ideal soul actualized in respect to the single virtue of Justice.7 Plato affirms that the only proper organization of the soul is that in which the moral intelligence (i.e. that power in us that is equipped to see the idea of the Good)8 is its ruler. Only the higher intelligence is able to survey, weigh, and evaluate phenomena in light of the idea of the Good. This same capacity extends to the ability either to assent to, reject, or criticize, those propositions put forth by other elements of the soul. In fact, it is precisely this ability that defines and constitutes its status as comparatively “higher,” to begin with. For this reason, it would be incoherent to order the soul in any other way, pace the ideological opposition that such a conclusion is likely to incur from anyone bearing an ideological commitment to “egalitarianism” or “equality” et cetera. More on this matter need not be said since the point will be at once apprehended by anyone willing to grasp it and for the one already determinately set against it, no amount of argumentation will suffice.
I will, however, permit myself a related though tangential remark on a likely objection to the above not for the sake of disputing against it, but for the light it may eventually shed on the divers modes of intelligence indicated at the outset of this piece. The objection to such hierarchy is the same as that which arises in many interpretations of the “dominion clause” of Genesis 1:26, in which Adam is cast in the “image and likeness” of God and granted “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” “Dominion,” in this context, is often interpreted as a synonym of “domination.” “Lordship,” by the same reasoning, is equated with “tyranny.” But the conflation of these two things can only follow from a lack of attentiveness to the phenomena in question rather than as a conclusion derived from consideration of them. Indeed, a foregone political commitment to the axiom that “all hierarchies are oppressive” is sure to immure one’s perception against any counterevidence to it. But in an ironic way—provided that tyranny is understood according to the reasonable definition of “dominion of an illegitimate authority”—the very commitment to the view that “all hierarchy is illegitimate” exercises exactly the tyranny that it held the pretence of foreclosing. In other words, an organization in which the less-conscious and less-rational element of the soul is allowed to establish the conclusions which the more conscious and more rational part must defend can only be characterized as tyrannical. Tyranny is precisely the result of rulership by a power unable to perform those functions that I delineated above as the hallmark of the moral or philosophical intelligence. The intelligence that insists on an axiomatic commitment to which one has sworn a foregone allegiance does not promise to be capable of performing such a task. Neither, of course, does the deferral of moral decisions to the instrumental intelligence, since the latter, by definition, presupposes the ends that it seeks to achieve and if the latter are not furnished by a higher power, they will be supplied by a lower one and a person is liable to find herself indentured to carrying out a ceaseless concatenation of arbitrary proffered by the “appetitive soul,” as Plato’s epithymetikon has often been translated.9
But isn’t it tyrannical for Adam to be granted dominion over nature? No, for the same reason that it is not tyrannical for the soul to be governed by its moral intelligence rather than its instrumental one. Philo Judeaus moreover suggests that the allegorical and tropological (i.e. metaphorical and moral, respectively) dimensions of Genesis reveal Adam’s dominion over the animals to be a symbol of the higher intelligence’s rulership over, and adjudication between, competing impulses and desires:
But the passions [Moses] compares to beasts and birds, because they injure the mind, being untamed and wild, and because, after the manner of birds, they descend upon the intellect; for their onset is swift and difficult to withstand
he observes.10 Carrying forward this hermeneutical spirit, an elaboration on the dynamics of this relationship will be discovered in the Flood narrative several chapters later, in Genesis 5-9, when Noah exercises his dominion over the animals by saving them from the deluge. The the continuation and eventual fruition of this trend is revealed through the typological interpretation, in which each of these figures is seen as a forerunner to Christ. In any case, it should be clear that “dominion” is not merely interchangeable with “domination.” Man is not called to “dominate” beings. Instead, man is called to be “the shepherd of Being.”11 A shepherd has a different set of problems than a sheep or a wolf, but only because he has deliberately taken them on, hence proving that he is adequate to the task. In other words, a being not capable of understanding and eventually taking on a task would not find itself confronted with challenges that stem from having taken it on. Conversely, for the one who has resolved to take on such a task, those challenges will confront him as exigencies, to be resolved by a judicious application of the instrumental intelligence. But the decision of whether to take on a task to begin with cannot be resolved by the same mode of intelligence that could potentially solve problems associated with its fulfilment.
Cf. Plato, Republic, Book VII.
Plato, Republic, 521c
Genesis 1:26
Cf. footnote № 1
Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene i.
Plato, Republic, 368d-369a.
Cf. Plato, Republic, 517b:
…in the world of knowledge the idea of the Good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.
Briefly, in Book IV, Plato had outlined a tripartite theory of the soul, consisting in the reasoning faculty (λογιστικόν), the spirited faculty (θυμοειδές), and the appetitive or desiring faculty (ἐπιθυμητικόν). Elsewhere, Book IX, Plato represents these elements as human, lion, and hydra, respectively. Justice, for Plato, was the outcome of an order in which the reasoning faculty of the soul was capable of ruling the others.
Heidegger, Martin, Letter on Humanism, 1964.