Lev Shestov - Potestas Clavium - Part III

     Zeller, unlike all other commentators on Plotinus, had the courage to say of him that his philosophy breaks with the Hellenic tradition, and that "the philosopher had lost absolute confidence in his thought." Zeller clearly did not observe what a fatal admission lurked in his words. Then one can trust one's thought, or one can also not trust it? Then reason has to justify itself, show its title, its justus titulus? Husserl says: "We shall not let ourselves be convinced that a thing which is logically and geometrically nonsensical is psychologically possible" (Logical Inquiries, II, 215). But here precisely that which is logically nonsensical, as Plotinus' example shows, has proved itself psychologically, i.e., really, possible: this is just what Zeller, conscientious as he is, is pointing out. In other words, the bounds of the possible and impossible are not fixed by reason. There is a judge and lawgiver above reason, and philosophy cannot remain a "rational" philosophy insofar as it seeks the rhidzômata pantôn (the roots of all things); it must be epekeina noû kai noêseôs (beyond reason and knowledge). But how escape reason and its dominion? How arrive at the true sources of being?

     We remember that Plotinus could not "depart from" reason. He had to drameîn hyper tên epistêmên, soar aloft above knowledge, leave the ground to which reason chains us. One cannot "soar aloft" with discussions and proofs. All attempts at "deductions from premises" hamper flight. We need something else of a quite different nature from proofs and the self-evident truths which lie behind proofs. We need a daring which knows no compromise, asks no questions, never looks behind. Only such a courage, only a mysterious faith in oneself and one's higher destiny (me praestantioris sortis esse), a faith which replaces the humble submission inculcated by wisdom, could give Plotinus the daring and the strength to begin his supreme and final battle, his agôn megistos kai eschatos, with the thousand years' tradition of philosophy. Sometimes his ego, terrorized, hypnotized, almost paralyzed by wisdom, sees in self-renunciation the highest ideal and, in order to gain praises from wisdom suppresses all vital impulses. It does not weep, it does not laugh, it is not wroth; reason and reason's truths seem to be eternal and invincible truths. But then comes the awakening, the spell woven by dream is broken, and man now speaks free and imperious. It is not that Plotinus has lost trust in reason - nay, he makes of reason his servant and slave.

     Truth lies epekeina noû kai noêseôs. This is no break with ancient philosophy, as Zeller says; it is a challenge to reason. This means that what really is, is not determined by reason's self-evidences, nor, indeed, by anything, but that it itself determines all things. The field of what really is, is a field of boundless freedom, not of a "rational" freedom such as man imposed on God Himself, but an unlimited, composed of those self-willed "suddenlies" which in Plotinus have taken the place of the former eks anankês. When reason "retreated" at Plotinus' demand it became clear that true being is not contained in that which lies "in our power," not in the "good," but in that which lies beyond the bounds of our possibilities, and that the morning and the evening stars are lovelier than moderation and justice. Or perhaps, indeed most probably, the opposite happened: when Plotinus felt that that which we create has only a conditional and relative value, while the real true value, to timiôtaton - and this is the true reality - lies in that which is not created by us: then came the awakening, then he saw that in the sublime sub specie aeternitatis lay concealed the fundamental lie and fatal error of the human race. In renouncing wisdom he tore himself free from the earth to which all cling so convulsively. What need has he of earth under his feet, who now has wings?

     Plotinus lost confidence in reason, in the philosophia vera, the truth which exercises compulsion; he saw in reason, which had dared forsake the One, the beginning of evil and he proclaimed that a supreme, final battle awaited the soul. Can philosophy stand aside from this battle? Can it continue to seek refuge in the shadow of morality and soothe itself with the traditional sub specie aeternitatis? People have done so, and still do so today. Husserl is right: we are offered wisdom in the place of philosophy. Hegel himself, for whom nothing apparently existed outside objective truth, saw in morality the beginning of philosophy. He writes in his Logic, which is also an ontology: "The return from the particular, finite existence to existence as such, in all its abstract universality, is to be considered the first requisite of theory and even of practice... Man must raise himself up to this abstract universality in which it is.... indifferent to him, whether he is or is not: is, that is, in finite life (for a state, definite existence is meant) or not, etc. - even, si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae" (if the earth, falling to pieces, were to slip away, still the crashing ruins will strike him unafraid). This means: morality first, then philosophy. To "think" we must renounce ourselves, our own living entity. After all that we have quoted here it will hardly be necessary to explain that the truth which follows morality is not original but derived and secondary.

     When the philosopher begins with the imperative "that man shall raise himself up to this abstract universality" he will end by setting ethics in the place of ontology. The whole of nineteenth-century philosophy started from Spinoza's sub specie aeternitatis or Hegel's "man shall raise himself up." Nietzsche's appearance in Germany and Dostoevsky's in Russia was an echo of this. Nietzsche proclaimed, or "shouted aloud" if you will, his "beyond good and evil" and his "master morality." When he succeeded in shaking off Hegel's and Spinoza's "man shall," he, like Plotinus, lost confidence in reason; he saw that the philosopher cannot seek his truths in the quarter where the mathematician learns that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. He saw that our synthetic a priori judgments, which are generally held as firmly established for all eternity, are the falsest imaginable. And as though in obedience to Plotinus' command pheugômen dê philên es patrida [let us flee then to the beloved fatherland] (I, vi, 8), he fled, fled without a look behind, before the gifts of reason. He fled even before modern Christianity which, in order to live in understanding with reason, had changed itself of its free will into morality. Yes, it will be said, and he dashed to his "blonde beast" - and that is surely atavism? But are we not rather inclined to see atavism even in Plato's anamnêsis?

     The same outbreak came in Dostoevsky's soul; he tells us about it in his Underground. He too was carried away beyond good and evil, beyond Hegel's first "theoretical and practical requisite." Sub specie aeternitatis seems to him the embodiment of horror and nonsense. All "lovely and sublime things," he says, "have lain heavy enough on my back during my forty years of life." The moment he had convinced himself that there was no necessity whatever to "raise oneself up to universality" he answered all morality's demands with laughter and scorn. Not only has he not the slightest intention of fulfilling any demands whatever, but he begins to make them himself. "I want," he says, "my caprice to be guaranteed," I want "to live according to my stupid (irrational) will," etc. Accordingly his thought went another way. Even "twice two is four" ceased to impress him. "'Twice two is four' is in my opinion simply an impertinence! 'Twice two is four' is a lout; he plants himself across our path, arms akimbo, and spits on the ground." Like Nietzsche and Plotinus, Dostoevsky also ceased to "believe" that a living being can be dominated by a lifeless truth, when it was revealed to him that he was praestantioris sortis. The Underground is a critique of pure reason, if you will, but far more radical than Kant's. Kant started from the postulate that metaphysics must offer proofs, like geometry and other sciences. Dostoevsky goes further; he opens up the question whether there is any need for these proofs, whether mathematics gives the norma veritatis. Therefore he does not even argue, he does not answer, he does not think it worth an answer, he laughs, scorns, mocks. The moment he sees a very sublime truth or a quite unshakable principle, he makes a long nose, sticks out his tongue, and far surpasses Aristotle himself in boldness; for Aristotle, although, as we know, he used arguments of this sort against Plato and Heraclitus, never dared mention them in his logic. Dostoevsky felt that we should and can drameîn hyper tên epistêmên (soar above knowledge). Zeller could have said of him, too, that he lost confidence in reason.

     But if it has come about, both in ancient days and in our own times, for men to lose confidence in reason, can we construct theories of knowledge on the basic principle that there is and can be no other power beside reason? Is it permissible to the philosopher to seek the norma veritatis in strict science?

     This brings us back to Hering's objection. In his estimation the "Awakening" of which I spoke in my Memento Mori - Plotinus', Nietzsche's, and Dostoevsky's awakenings - is no concern of the phenomenologist. "As for phenomenology and its doctrine of the cogitationes, in the well-known redaction its strength lies precisely in the fact that it takes for the theme of its inquiries the pure consciousness, for which the difference between homo dormiens (man asleep) and homo vigilans (man awake) in the sense used here does not exist. That which says ego cogito, ego existo, is Husserl's pure ego." If this were so, if the ego cogito meant one and the same thing in Plotinus and Spinoza, in Dostoevsky and Hegel, in him who sleeps and him who wakes, phenomenology could triumph. But to reach this end we should have, as we know, first to bring all these egos, to look on life sub specie aeternitatis, or "to rise to universality." Can phenomenology be sure of achieving this? We remember how Plotinus, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, answer reasoned arguments. It will be objected that scorn and coarse mockery are no rejoinder. But I repeat once again that Aristotle himself took refuge in such methods when he could find no other reply to Heraclitus and Plato, and that in Plotinus reason had to "retreat" in the end. This means that phenomenology has power only over an ego tamed and chastened by wisdom. It says ego cogito but operates on the ego cogitat. It seeks for the essence, i.e., it tries to entice the human egos into the "field of logical reason." With tyros this succeeds, but the more experienced egos take flight in all directions at the first attempt to pen them into a general conception. They know that once they accept the challenge to battle on the field of logical reason they are lost. Not only will mockery and scorn be illicit weapons there, but one will also not be allowed either ridere or lugere, and particularly not detestari. Les vérités de la raison or the veritates aeternae come into their rights, and that is the end forever of that "unexpected," of that "suddenly" of which Plotinus has given us such a glorious account. Men will then be subjected to the law of continuity, which, if we are to believe Leibniz, is as unshakable as the law of contradiction [1] then the "suddenly" will be stamped once and for all with the reproach of being a Deus ex machina.

     Plotinus, who "tore himself loose from the earth," asks reason to follow him, and continues the battle not on the firm earth but above it. Will reason take up the challenge under such conditions? There can be only one answer. There is nothing more terrible in the world for reason than to have no ground. It is indeed a priori convinced that this is the supreme terror for every living creature. When Kant asked whether metaphysics was possible, he started from the presupposition, which seemed to him self-evident, that the aim of metaphysics, as of the other sciences, must be well-grounded, compelling truths, and his critique of pure reason turns into an apology of pure reason. Husserl, who diverges in many places from Kant, is absolutely at one with him in this respect. He believes that reason needs no justification; that, on the contrary, everything has to justify itself before reason. And the moment he loses this faith (and if that "happened" to Plotinus, there is no guarantee that some unexpected "memento" may not rob the most convinced of nationalists of the ground under his feet), then what is left of the theory of knowledge founded on self-evidences? Hering asks me, "Since Shestov knows German philosophy so well, can he really have failed to notice that throughout phenomenological literature... few philosophic terms occur so frequently as 'intuition,' 'view,' 'essence'? Is there any contemporary philosophy, that of Bergson alone excepted, which is so emphatic as phenomenology in basing all knowledge on processes which give rise to views?" Of course I noticed it; it would be impossible not to notice a thing which leaps to the eye. But intuition helps as little as the ego cogito, unless we agree to renounce ready-made presuppositions, or rather, if we still place these presuppositions before every cogito and all intuition; and this is what "illimitability of reason" surely means.

     Bergson permitted himself the most violent attacks on reason; he say somewhere: Notre raison incurablement présomptueuse s'imagine posséder par droit de naissance ou par droit de conquête... tous les éléments de la vérité. (Our incurably presumptuous reason imagines that it possesses by right of birth or by right of conquest... all the elements of truth.) In another place he says, almost like Plotinus: Le raisonnement me clouera toujours à la terre ferme. (Reasoning will always nail me to firm ground.) But Bergson himself begins to waver and tries to retreat when the moment has come to drameîn hyper tên epistêmên (to soar above knowledge), when he feels that the earth is giving way under his feet. He fears that a philosophy which trusts too much to its own resources, tôt ou tard sera balayée par la science (will sooner or later be swept away by science). With Bergson, just as with Husserl, intuition has no independent rights. It takes refuge, and must take refuge, under the protection of reason, for only reason, with its unshakable a priori, can save it from all sorts of arbitrary and "sudden" things. Read Bergson's L'Évolution créatrice where he discusses ordre et désordre, and you will convince yourself that this is another declaration of the sovereign rights of reason; not quite so solemn, but in essence little different from what Husserl says in his Philosophy as Strict Science, and what Plotinus expressed in the formula archê oûn logos. The reproaches of hostile critics notwithstanding, reality in Bergson never emancipates itself from the watchful and strict guardianship of reason.

     Here I can end. Hering had ground enough to return to the protection of the sub specie aeternitatis and to ask for help of the wisdom which Husserl rejected. Husserl, one may assume, will agree to no compromise and will continue to maintain that there is and can be no other power beside reason; that what is logically and geometrically nonsensical is psychologically, i.e., realiter, impossible; that reason has the right to summon truth before its forum, to call on truth to show its title, etc.; for only under such conditions can philosophy be a strict science. My task has consisted in showing that reason has not the power which it claims. That which is logically nonsensical is psychologically possible. Truth gets through life without showing any sort of documentary titles. And individual living men who have awakened from the enchanted sleep of thousands of years of a priori and have reached the desired freedom do not in their search for truth turn to that quarter whither Spinoza turned to learn what is the sum of the angles of a triangle. Truth does not need a support, as though it could not carry itself. The ultimate truth, that for which philosophy seeks, that which is to timiôtaton for living men, comes "suddenly." It knows no compulsion and compels none. Tote de chrê heôrakenai pisteuein, hotan hê psychê eksaiphnês phôs labêi [but then indeed we must believe that we have seen IT, when a light suddenly dawns on the soul]. This is where Plotinus was brought by Greek philosophy, that philosophy which had tried for a thousand years to subdue the human spirit to reason and necessity; that is why Plotinus began his last and mighty battle. We can, of course, turn away from Plotinus; we can renounce the last battle and continue to look upon the world and life sub specie aeternitatis, and in our flight before the arbitrary "suddenlies" shut ourselves up in the ideal world of moral existence, and refuse to step forth into the freedom of real life. We can bow before necessity and compelling truth and give out ethics for ontology. In that case, however, we must not only forget Plotinus; we must also forget everything that Husserl, in his brilliant works, has told us with such extraordinary animation about wisdom and specific relativism.

[1] "L'Entendement humain", avant-propos: C'est une de mes grandes maximes et des plus vérifiées, que la nature ne fait jamais de sauts. J'appellai cela la loi de la continuité. [It is one of my great and best established maxims that nature never makes any leaps. I shall call this the law of continuity].