Eternal Knowledge and Belief in Spinoza

In his Ethics, Spinoza writes that “He, who has a true idea, simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived.”[1]  The notion in this passage, which is referenced in multiple other passages in the Ethics, is that knowledge is an a priori function derived from that which is eternal.  Spinoza thus considers knowledge of God as the only adequate idea, so that what is known is only that which is completely certain.[2]  As eternal knowledge is completely certain, Spinoza seems to avoid the Cartesian skepticism that rules over the perceptions.  Spinoza relies on his previously explained metaphysic in which all substance is one, that is, that all substance is God, and thus indivisible and infinite.  However, such a notion seems to fly in the face of many variations of the classical foundationalist model of justified true belief epistemologies.  The knowledge is already there, much like a Platonic doctrine of ideas, but is unique to Spinoza because of his doctrine of infinite substance.  Thus, one does not need to prove that truth is had, which differs from the Cartesian method that seeks to correct false ideas to arrive at knowledge.[3]  Furthermore, belief is unnecessary to knowledge because belief is not necessarily of the truth.  Justification of this truth is unnecessary as well due to knowledge being of that which is already known.  Thus, there seems an issue at work here, pointed out by Richard Mason in his article “Spinoza and the Unimportance of Belief,” that Spinoza “gave no clue about how the gap between belief and knowledge might be bridged, beyond a suggestion that immediate intuition seemed enough to sift true from false ideas.”[4]  The answer to this issue seems largely unanswered.  However, while Mason’s claim seems accurate in that Spinoza does not directly address the supposed separation of knowledge and belief, the answer lies implicitly in the Ethics, and is seen upon a closer examination of what Spinoza means by his doctrine of eternal knowledge.  I will argue that Spinoza’s system does indeed account for Mason’s discrepancy between knowledge and belief; it will be seen that knowledge, according to Spinoza’s account, is not entirely separate from belief, but in a particular way entails belief.

First, I must briefly clarify Spinoza’s system.  It is derived from a notably pantheistic metaphysic in which “There can only be one substance with an identical attribute…It does not exist as finite, for it would then be limited by something else of the same kind, which would also necessarily exist…It therefore exists as infinite.”[5]  Such an infinite substance, according to Spinoza, can only be God.[6]  Because there is only one infinite substance, that is, God, “Substance absolutely infinite is indivisible.”[7]  It is from this notion that Spinoza is able to arrive at a concept of an eternal mind.  He writes that “The idea of God, from which an infinite number of things follow in infinite ways, can only be one.”[8]  Furthermore, “Infinite intellect comprehends nothing save the attributes of God and his modifications,” and since there is only one substance, there is only one idea that can be comprehended, specifically God as infinite substance.[9]  Spinoza takes this idea of one infinite substance and intellect and carries it further to show that this notion leads to the deduction that there can only be one mind, so that the seeming individuality of particular minds are actually just infinite attributes of the one substance.[10]  Thus, “Our mind (the one mind or substance, that is, God), in so far as it knows itself and the body under the form of eternity, has to that extent necessarily a knowledge of God, and knows that it is in God, and is conceived through God.”[11]  This eternal mind, as recognized by Spinoza, is a natural extension of the one substance, but its main usefulness here is that it explains Spinoza’s position on eternal knowledge, that is, that knowledge is a priori and is of the infinite substance.  Another way of stating this concept is that “Knowledge is of essence…the reflection of the ideal of Being.”[12]  The Cartesian assumption that multiple minds, or a minimal distinction between God and individual self, exist separately is entirely true according to Spinoza’s framework.[13]  Rather, the apparent distinction between the finite substance and infinite substance is actually just a matter of the “points of view of the whole.”[14]  The one substance is thus in an infinite state of comprehending itself, and it does so by an infinite chain of attributes that simply appear as finite within the human mind.

One issue with the notion of eternal knowledge arises when Spinoza seems to believe that the finite mind continues to acquire knowledge after death.[15]  This might seem unreasonable given Spinoza’s metaphysics of infinite substance.  For example, Michael Lebuffe asks the question, “How can Spinoza hold that what is eternal is also a thing that can change over the course of one’s life?”[16]  However, it is precisely this metaphysics that accounts for such a claim.  First, Spinoza’s pantheistic account of substance renders death to the same level that it renders individuality—it seems to merely be a matter of point of view.  That is, death of the individual requires the particular individual.  What is thought to be the particular individual is actually just a modification of Spinoza’s one substance.  Thus, death seems to merely be an alteration of the state of the substance.  Yet this account of death does not entirely answer the issue of change seeming to occur in infinite substance.  The answer is found in Spinoza’s claim that while the eternal mind of the infinite substance does not actually change by increasing or decreasing in knowledge, the finite parts, or individual minds, operate according to “proportions” in order to comprehend the one substance.[17]  Lebuffe explains that “When other parts of a mind decrease, the eternal part of a mind can increase, as a proportion of a mind, without itself changing.”[18]  Thus Spinoza introduces a certain amount of realization into his method.  As noted, the finite parts of the one substance are only finite insofar as they merely seem to be particulars, acting as particulars on a practical level.  Each mind is actually just a mode of the eternal mind.  By introducing proportions, to increase the part of the mind that is eternal is to increase in realization of the eternal mind.  Death is one way that this process is furthered, and so it can be seen that change does not actually occur, but rather infinite and finite knowledge remains immutable.

I suggest that by recognizing that there is a certain degree of realization involved in the reconciliation of supposed differences between finite and infinite minds, Spinoza’s system no longer seems to be antagonistic toward classical foundationalist notions, but is rather seeking to fulfill the demands of a suitable epistemology.  Jon Miller writes that Spinoza’s a priori system of knowledge is not an effort to undermine foundationalism, but has the goal of correcting probabilistic systems such Descartes’ system, as “Any philosophical system, then, if it is to be satisfactory, must begin with what is epistemically basic.”[19]  By outlining an a priori metaphysic, Spinoza seeks to make truth and justification the same; it is on this a priori knowledge that all other knowledge is based on.  Thus it provides the foundation upon which other knowledge can be justified.

In response to the apparent separation between knowledge and belief, it is important to understand that from Spinoza’s system can be inferred an implicit distinction between belief alone and knowledge that entails belief, which I claimed earlier that Spinoza supports implicitly within his metaphysic.  As demonstrated, Spinoza’s a priori system sets up a series of basic truths that are known.  From these truths are derived that God, substance, and mind are one and infinite.  To reconcile supposed changes in finite minds, it is recognized that the finite minds are actually just part of the infinite whole and are in the infinite process of realization.  This is why Spinoza writes that “The mind’s highest good is the knowledge of God.”[20]  He implicitly means that even after death the mind is still infinitely realizing God as infinite substance.  Thus belief is contained within knowledge.  Belief is not completely absent, as Mason might suggest, but is part of the realization process of the eternal mind.  Knowledge of God, as Spinoza demonstrates, is definite so that it is absolutely known.  It is unimportant for Spinoza to make belief a separate condition for knowledge since it is already entailed by this system.  Furthermore, belief as a condition in itself leads to probabilistic doubt, a flaw that Spinoza recognized in Descartes’ system.  By forming an a priori system of absolutely certain basic truths, “Spinoza is concerned to minimize the harmful effects of beliefs that cause strife and disorder,” therefore avoiding the pitfalls of Descartes’ methodical doubt.[21]  Descartes recognized that knowledge of God was all-important, although Spinoza sought to correct some errors in his methodology.[22]  The invocation of infinite substance as God and eternal mind allowed Spinoza to avoid issues with uncertainty present in Descartes, as well as form a certain and basic foundation on which one can have knowledge.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benedict de Spinoza. Works of Spinoza: The Ethics, translated by R. H. M. Elwes. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955.

Edmund Gettier.  1963. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23, no. 6, (June 1): 121-123.

Jon Miller. 2004. “Spinoza and the A Priori.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34, no. 4: 555-590.

Leon Roth. Spinoza, Descartes, and Maimonides. New York: Russell and Russell, 1963.

Michael Lebuffe. 2005. “Spinoza’s Summum Bonum.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86: 243-266.

__________. 2010. “Change and the Eternal Part of the Mind in Spinoza.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91: 369-384.

Moira Gatens. 2012. “Compelling Fictions: Spinoza and George Elliot on Imagination and Belief.” European Journal of Philosophy 20, no.1: 74-90.

René Descartes. Meditations on First Philosophy, translated by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.

Richard Mason. 2004. “Spinoza and the Unimportance of Belief.” Philosophy 79: 281-298.

 

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[1]Spinoza, Benedict de, Works of Spinoza: The Ethics, trans. R. H. M. Elwes (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955), 114.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Mason, Richard, “Spinoza and the Unimportance of Belief,” Philosophy 79 (2004): 284.

[4] Ibid, 282.

[5] Spinoza, Ethics, 48.

[6] Ibid, 45.

[7] Ibid, 54.

[8] Ibid, 85.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid, 96.

[11] Ibid, 262.

[12] Roth, Leon, Spinoza, Descartes, and Maimonides (New York: Russell and Russell, 1963), 110.

[13] Descartes, René, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), 46.

[14] Roth, Spinoza, Descartes, and Maimonides, 110.

[15] Spinoza, Ethics, 267.

Lebuffe, Michael, “Change and the Eternal Part of the Mind in Spinoza,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (2010): 369.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Spinoza, Ethics, 266.

[18] Lebuffe, Change and the Eternal Part of the Mind in Spinoza, 370.

[19] Miller, Jon, “Spinoza and the A Priori,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34, no. 4 (2004): 565.

[20] Spinoza, Ethics, 205.

Lebuffe, Michael, “Spinoza’s Summum Bonum,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86, (2005): 251.

[21] Gatens, Moira, “Compelling Fictions: Spinoza and George Eliot on Imagination and Belief,” European Journal of Philosophy 20, no. 1 (2012): 76.

Descartes, Meditations, 17.

[22] Ibid, 25.

Clarifying ‘Continental’ and ‘Analytic’

Is there or is there not a distinction between what is called analytical and what is called continental philosophy? We’ve talked about this some, but the answers are so far, unsatisfying.

It is necessary to remove one objection to this inquiry before I begin. That is, that there is no continental/analytic distinction, or there isn’t one anymore. I’ll make a brief, imprecise argument against this here.

1. When I’m talking to members of this symposium about the distinction, we seem to be referring to something similar and understood amongst ourselves.
2. It is useful clarify what one means in a group of one’s peers.
3. It is useful to us to discuss the distinction.
4. A false distinction would be a waste of time to talk about.
5. Therefore it is describing a real distinction.

However, that doesn’t mean that we are using the words ‘continental’ and ‘analytic’ well, so the conclusion of this clarificatory process could be that we should use different words. But with that out of the way, let’s begin. I’ll explain two senses which seem insufficient, and then provide a potential solution.

(1) The usual sense in which we seem to delineate the two is something along the following lines: Analytic thought is depth-oriented, whereas continental thought is breadth-oriented. This isn’t wrong, exactly, but it is unclear what is being said. Obviously a good analytic philosopher wants to incorporate his conclusions into some kind of broad philosophical system, and continental philosopher wants to know how specific points cooperate in his outlook. Additionally, the farther we move from the positivists and British or Hegelian idealists, the more this seems to break down. Yes, an analytic work can be overly concerned with absolute precision (e.g., maybe Gettier discussions in epistemology), but a contemporary continental work can be equally narrow on the issues with which it is concerned. Both have come to assume a prior, accepted framework in which their work is done.

(2)Another way we’ve described it discussion is that the difference is one of method. Philosophical investigation seems to have very tight rules for the analytic. Defining one’s terms clearly, for example, is absolutely necessary. Possibility, necessity, right, good, justification, and so on, all have specific meanings and must be used accurately for meaningful discourse to proceed. The continental, on the other hand, can seem flippant with words she uses. For example, Derrida: “Deconstruction, by definition, cannot be defined.” Obviously, this is some kind of a joke, or a word game, the analytic might say. However, at times the continental will speak paradoxically and meant to be taken very seriously. The analytic cannot abide this. So, the method seems to be different.

This is more accurate than (1), as I hope to explain in my concluding paragraph. However, there are at least three problems with this explanation. First, the “tight rules” of the analytic have not been well-defined, and there doesn’t seem much reason to try. Vague guidelines can be made (clarity, precision, involvedness, comprehensiveness) but this isn’t a real definition of the essence of analytic philosophy. It is more of a description of its accoutrements. Second, because the continental is essentially defined negatively, (as not-a-follower-of-the-analytic-rules) it is equally vague.

(3) Though (2) is not sufficient to explain the distinction, it does point us in the right direction. There is a sense in which we are talking about a method of philosophizing. However, philosophizing is not the same as composing philosophy, which seems to be where (2) goes wrong. Those guidelines of analytic philosophy seem to exist because they describe loosely the way analytic philosophy is composed. However, the way analytic philosophy is written is expressive of something more fundamental in analytic thought. (1), however also helps in constructing this analysis, because the difference in philosophical method seems to be a difference in the order of operations of the “schools”. My proposition, then, is this:

1. What we have meant by an analytic philosopher (as philosopher) is one who attempts to work from the objectively meaningful to the subjectively meaningful. Definitions are proposed, [objective] propositions accepted or rejected, and then connected together to form a “book” of propositions about what one believes about the world. Questions are first directed against individual propositions, and then (if at all) the systems of those propositions in general.

2. What we have meant by a continental philosopher (as philosopher) is one who attempts to work from the subjectively meaningful to the objectively meaningful. A structure (one could even say narrative structure) is proposed – Marxism, Hegelianism, deconstructionism, etc. This becomes then the subjective method by which one applies and appropriates propositions about the world. Questions are first directed against individual propositions, and then (if at all) the systems of those propositions in general.

Let’s take two small, quick examples:

1. “Judging whether life is or is not worth living amount to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” –Albert Camus
2. “I will stay on this course until I know something certain, or, if nothing else, until I at least know for certain that nothing is certain… [G]reat things are to be hoped for if I succeed in finding one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshaken.” — Rene Descartes

I use Camus and Descartes because neither is really continental or analytic, historically speaking. Camus is concerned with valuation, Descartes with certainty. Descartes is the most obvious possible example: Mathematical logic (something objective), essentially, will dictate and put together a system of philosophy for oneself (subjective). His cogito ergo sum is metaphysical, and thus a justifiable starting point for philosophy.

Camus’s project is similar in some ways—he too is looking for a kind of certainty. However, this certainty is not whether something exists, exactly, but rather one is able to live, whether there is a way to orient oneself toward the world that will result in meaningful interaction. Indeed, for Camus, humanity must rebel against the cruel, empty “objective” world. (Dostoevsky’s classic and similar sentiment is noted below as a further example.)

1 and 2 above, I think, are  what we have generally meant by the analytic/continental distinction. Whether or not we should retain those words to describe the distinction (or philosophers themselves) is a different matter altogether.

I wrote this rather quickly, and I’m a little ashamed of it, but I wanted to get it posted or I’d never do it. There are still some issues with my final solution, I think, and I’d like to hear your thoughts about it if you have the time. Let me know, at least if (A) this seems clear in general, and (B) if my proposed definition seems superior or inferior to the preceding definitions.

(“… I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This Credo is very simple, here it is: to believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, manly, and more perfect than Christ; and I tell myself with a jealous love not only that there is nothing but that there cannot be anything. Even more, if someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth, and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with truth.” –Fyodor Dostoevsky)

Authenticity in Voltaire’s Candide and Henrick Ibsen’s The Wild Duck

The way in which one responds to and interprets the world and their situation therein, can be approached either authentically or inauthentically, with an aim for truth or avoiding truth of the reality of an individual’s situation and the world in general. Within Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck and François Marie Arouet de Voltaire’s Candide, both authors provide characters that are inauthentic, people who want to escape the world which does not match up to their idea and desire of how the reality of the world should be. The characters Dr. Relling in Ibsen’s play and Martin in Voltaire’s novel share a similar conclusion that truth is too difficult to accept and a person’s happiness can be attained only by escaping truth. By presenting these characters perspectives, Ibsen and Voltaire reveal the negative consequences of their conclusions, in order to show that truth can be understood and appropriated, that life can be lived accordingly, and as a consequence, to a better extent.

In The Wild Duck, Ibsen presents a life problem which various characters engage in, giving their personal philosophy concerning the way in which the character who has the problem, Hialmar Ekdal, should deal with it. This rhetorical strategy allows Ibsen the ability to explore and critique the various characters perspectives. The problem that Hialmar faces throughout the book is one that is brought about when Gregers Werle, as a consequence of his self-assigned mission, reveals to Hialmar that his wife Gina was involved in an affair previous to their marriage. What this mission is and what philosophy he holds, another character Dr. Relling reveals: “He went round to all the cotters’ cabins presenting something he called ‘the claim of the ideal,’” to present truth at all costs, believing that after realizing the truth, a person can appropriate their lives in a way that leads to a more authentic, truth driven life (The Wild Duck, 66). When Hialmar discovers his wife’s affair with Gregers’s father, who he believes might be the father of Hedvig, Hialmar’s daughter, he decides that he is going to disown Hedvig as a daughter and leave Gina to Greger’s surprise.

In light of this situation, Ibsen then forces the question as to how one is to respond to the various problems that arise in life which are difficult to acknowledge, which mirrors the human situation in general, namely how one is to deal authentically with the world in conjunction with the desire for, and knowledge of, truth, while not responding in such an exaggerated manner like Hialmar, and how to go about seeking truth unlike Gregers. The character within the play who articulates this problem most clearly is Dr. Relling. It is he who shows the problems inherent in Gregers’s “truth at all costs” philosophy, by showing that his motives are not in the “fearless spirit of sacrifice” as he thought, rather to redeem himself through Hialmar, not Hialmar himself: “you are always in a delirium of hero-worship…” (101). Thus it seems Ibsen presents Relling as a character that has some understanding of reality, as it is truly.

Although he finds problems in Gregers’s philosophy, he too has a problematic view on perceiving truth, which is suggested by his title doctor. His idea of handling truth is one who like a doctor, diagnoses and attempts to rid Hialmar’s problem in such a way that is often mistaken as a cure: to give a medicine which numbs the pain. This then leads him to conclude, “Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke” (103). Relling is in some sense speaking on behalf of the underlying perspective, which he, Hialmar, and Gregers all hold, namely one which indulges in delusion in order for an escape. What separates Dr. Relling from the others is that he is the only one who recognizes the perspective that the three share, that it is better not to know the truth at all but relieve one’s self of dealing with it. By way of Relling’s realization, Ibsen then is able to articulate the quasi romantic escapism he and many people hold, which often appears in different forms, which forces one to acknowledge the problem of escapism, in order to make way for Ibsen’s character Mrs. Sorby. Ibsen presents her as the only one who appropriates her situation authentically, dealing with the personal problems she faces without escaping, with a mind to perceive things honestly, and understanding herself accordingly. As Relling’s philosophy leaves no room for truth, he provides no wisdom towards dealing with life, and as Relling’s antidotes do not help Hailmar’s situation, Ibsen reveals that this is an absurd option.

While Ibsen focuses on individual situations, Voltaire addresses a metaphysical problem, which is more universal, namely the problem of evil. Like Ibsen, Voltaire deals with authenticity and the various ways people often wrongly respond to the reality of evil in the world. At the beginning of the novel, the problem which Voltaire poses surfaces when he leads Candide through various situations which bring out the random evil in the world, from pillages, raping, abuse, and natural evil, in order to test Candide’s metaphysical belief that “all is for the best in this world” (“Candide,” 389).Throughout his journey, Candide meets another philosopher whose opinion is radically different from the other philosopher Pangloss, who is Candide’s teacher. The narrator reveals that like Candide, Martin has experienced a great deal of evil: “he had been robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, and deserted by his daughter” (412). While Candide keeps hoping, Martin did the opposite, assuming a stoical and cynical character, placing no hope in the world. Thus when dealing with the evils of men, he concludes, “What do you expect? That is how these folks are,” and as for the whole problem, “I don’t suppose it’s worth the trouble of discussing” (425). This leads Candide to the conclusion, “You’re a hard man.” Martin reveals why, “I’ve lived.” With this sort of understanding and knowledge which resembles Dr. Relling’s, Martin is able to see through the decadent optimism of Candide’s belief, “as I survey this globe or globule, I think that God has abandoned it to some evil spirit…” (412). Martin shows that regardless of the evidence against Candide’s perspective that all works for the best, he continues to believe it.

As a consequence of Martin’s perspective, he is able to share some legitimate insights, but like Relling, his outlook too has its problem. Voltaire wants to show that while a stoic or cynic might be warranted in some sense for believing that there is no hope for this world and that one should become reserved and careless towards these problems, this view is just as much an escape, or worse, a fatalism. The problem with Martin’s view is that if one believes that things will never change, this alleviates the responsibility of trying to make things better. Martin then finds the philosophy of Eldorado appealing: “[W]hen you are pretty comfortable somewhere, you had better stay there” (408). But like the Turkish farmer at the end, Voltaire concludes that “we must cultivate our garden,” or work in one’s area to enlighten one’s self and others in order to mitigate the evil within the world: “the work keeps us from the three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty” (437). The problem with Martin and Eldorado is that they neglect the rest of the suffering world by believing this—escaping the problem rather than dealing with it.

Both Ibsen and Voltaire in their writings deal extensively with truth and the problems with the predominant tendency towards any escapist philosophy. As Ibsen and Voltaire demonstrate, dealing with both personal problems and the world’s problems as a whole are never solved through escape. As they see it, it is better to understand truth and the difficulty of living with such, enabling one to live life to a better extent.

Works Cited

Ibsen, Henrik. The Wild Duck; The League of Youth; Rosmersholm. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1918. Print.

Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet. “Candide.” The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. Ed.     Sarah Lawall. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2006. 375-438. Print.

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The Role of Others in the thought of C.S Lewis

The way others perceive us highly influences our own self-perception. The way in which we regulate our lives is often in accordance with others’ perceptions, and what they expect of us. Both Jean-Paul Sartre and C.S Lewis saw that it was necessary to reinterpret the role of others in our lives in order that we might define ourselves authentically. Jean-Paul Sartre famously declared in his play No Exit that “Hell is other people,” and Lewis, in his book The Great Divorce, utilized images of Heaven and Hell to explore the self’s relation to others. Lewis’s analysis, however, will show why people wrongly conclude, as Sartre did, that others necessarily play a negative role in our lives.

One thinker to treat others as an important variable for an individual’s self-recognition was the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. In his book I and Thou, Buber noted that our experience of the world rests on the individuals attitudes towards others: “The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with the twofold nature of the primary words which he speaks… The one primary word is the combination I-Thou.The other primary word is the combination I-It.”[1]There is no separating others from who we are, for when we say I as a particular individual, we must refer to another individual also. Therefore our being is tied into ‘the other.’ We can see other individuals as things and objects, as an ‘It,’ or we can see people as an undefinable, infinite, ‘Thou.’  Buber stressed that we see others as a thou, because only when we recognize that a person is more than an object of our experience, and that we cannot define who they are, do we experience ourselves and the people who we interact with fully. This is the problem with saying “I-It,” because like an object which has a specific use, people only have meaning insofar as we define them as something.

Jean-Paul Sartre saw that others necessarily see us in the light of the I-It, because the distance between the I and the opposing other is infinite. Because of this, we can never perceive people beyond an It. Since we cannot control how others view us, Sartre noticed that we feel that we are subject either to conform to their definition of who we are and win their approval, or to rebel and attain the freedom to define ourselves at the expense of the approval that we desire. Either way, our identity rests in the other. Sartre communicates this perspective in his play No Exit. The play begins with Garcin, a middle aged journalist from Rio who realizes that he has arrived in Hell. At first, Garcin is surprised to find that Hell is not what he expected it to be, for he meets no flames and finds no torturer. Considering Hell is a place of punishment, the overarching question then becomes “where are the instruments of torture?”[2] While lacking any apparent means for punishment, Garcin notices that Hell has finality to it: the furniture in his room cannot be moved, and he cannot close his eyes, everything is fixed; Hell cannot be changed or escaped: “it’s life without a break.”[3] This is an important detail, for it emphasizes not an aspect of Hell, but the reality of earth that had previously gone unnoticed. Another character named Inez then joins Garcin in his room. Although she finds out that Garcin is not there to torture her, merely his presence is enough to torment her, for he immediately begins to annoy her: “Must you be here all the time, or do you take a stroll outside, now and then?”[4] Inez too torments Garcin in a similar way, but it is her judgment that bothers him, that he cannot change: “do you really think I look like a torturer?”[5] Lastly, another woman named Estelle appears, and the three begin to discuss their situation.

Each of the characters notices that they can see nothing but one another. This leaves them completely exposed to the eyes of the others. Estelle realizes that this is disturbing, for she can see herself only insofar as Garcin and Inez do, “Come, to me, Estelle. You shall be whatever you like… deep down in my eyes you’ll see yourself just as you want to be…” regardless, Estelle does not find this comforting, “I can’t see myself properly… I’m going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and Heaven knows that it will become.”[6]  Estelle becomes an object for the other two to define, losing her freedom to define herself as she would like. Although Inez is willing to help her, and recognizes Estelle as the person Estelle desires to be, Garcin does not. For the rest of the play she is set on getting it. Garcin then reveals that Estelle’s situation applies to him and Inez as well: “If you make any movement, if you raise your hand to fan yourself, Estelle and I feel a little tug. Alone, none of us can save himself or herself; we’re linked together inextricably.”[7] When Garcin realizes that Inez and Estelle are aware that he died while running away from the war in his country, he feels their judgment: that he is a coward. Although Estelle assures him that she finds his decision to be legitimate, it is Inez’s recognition that he desires: “You’re a coward, Garcin, because I wish it… And yet, just look at me, see how weak I am, a mere breath on the air, a gaze observing you, a formless thought that thinks you.”[8] And thus, even when the door to his cell opens, he remains, “It’s because of her I’m staying here.”[9]

Sartre reveals that around other people we become a different self that is rooted in another person. Therefore other people necessarily limit our freedom; I become defined in the eyes of another, whereas when our person is an object for ourselves, we are free to choose from an infinite number of possibilities to make ourselves into whatever we should choose. The worst part of Hell lies in its finality, because it brings the possibility of change to a close. Considering all three characters are unsatisfied with how they lived their lives, Hell forces them to recognize the harsh reality that “[a] man is what he wills himself to be” and that “one’s whole life is complete at that moment [death], with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for summing up. You are—your life, and nothing else.”[10] Inez, Estelle, and Garcin are left to suffer the judgments that one another place on each other’s decisions. Thus Sartre, like Garcin, concludes, “There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is—other people!”[11]
Although Sartre’s conclusion seems to be rather pessimistic, he presents us with a problem that our experience can testify to. As it seems that our recognition of the other’s consciousness is essential for consciousness itself, it is reasonable to conclude that the way we perceive ourselves is through the eyes of the other. Hell in Lewis’s novel The Great Divorce bears a significant resemblance to No Exit in that its punishment is others. I will argue that although Lewis recognizes that Hell is other people in some sense, Lewis transcends Sartre’s perspective through a theological interpretation of others. He attributes our dislike of others to a manifestation of our selfish desire for ourselves and not God, and notes that when we recognize that we are nothing without God and relationships, Heaven, not Hell, is other people.

Lewis’s novel, like Sartre’s play, also begins in Hell, with the narrator standing in line for a bus that is to depart to Heaven. Interestingly, the residents of Hell display an immediate dislike for each other. One character reveals that this hatred for others is so intense, that there are innumerable houses in Hell: “As soon as anyone arrives he settles in some street. Before he’s been there twenty-four hours he quarrels with his neighbor. Before the week is over he’s quarreled so badly that he decides to move… You’ve only got to think a house and there it is. That’s how the town keeps growing.”[12] Lewis’s conception of Hell is important, because although Hell is real, its reality is made up by what the residents desire it to be. When the narrator arrives in Heaven, he sees that it is large and expansive; the colors are bright and the grass is hard. The landscape emphasizes the ‘realness’ of Heaven, and the Spirits or the Heavenly residents in comparison are completely visible, and can walk around on the earth of Heaven without any trouble, opposed to the residents of Hell, who are “fully transparent… smudgy and imperfectly opaque when they stood in the shadow of the tree,” and find Heaven, quite literally, too hard to grasp.[13]  Throughout the rest of the story, the Spirits of Heaven and the Ghosts from Hell engage in various dialogues, all of which reflect the moral that Lewis wants to communicate through this story. In the preface to The Great Divorce, Lewis explains that the book is a criticism of the underlying philosophical presupposition behind William Blake’s attempt to marry Heaven with Hell, “that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable ‘either-or,’” and that there is  “some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found.”[14] For Lewis, there is no mean between Heaven and Hell; the good is reality, the bad is created ex nihilo out of our imagination, it proceeds out of nothing. Thus, “The whole difficulty of understanding Hell is that the thing to be understood is so nearly Nothing.”[15] Therefore Lewis’s use of imagery allows him to communicate this unique position, which emphasizes the realness of Heaven in comparison to Hell.

This then is the problem that all of the ghosts (aside from the narrator) share: to have a little bit of Heaven with a piece of Hell. One ghost who is approached by a Spirit instantly finds that the Spirit makes it uncomfortable: “I don’t want help. I want to be left alone.”[16] This is interesting, for the ghost desires solitude not because the Spirit is inhibiting his individual freedom, but fears his illuminating eye. Another interesting parallel between the ghost and the Spirit is that, while the Spirit is openly nude, the ghost is thoroughly concerned with how it looks: “It’s far worse than going out with nothing on would have been on Earth. Have everyone staring through me.”[17] The transparency of the ghost leaves it wide open for the others to see, which it finds horrifying, as it no longer has the ability to hide, to place an imaginary barrier between it and others. Hell, which is manifested in the presence of others, lies not in the other, but in the self. In Heaven, “There are no private affairs,” the ghost is afraid that his being will be revealed.[18] According to Lewis then, our discomfort with others should not lead to a rejection of the other; rather we should embrace the other.
What Lewis is anticipating here, is that God himself is the ‘ultimate other,’ and only in Him do we find our true self.  In the Problem of Pain, Lewis explains,“To be a complete man means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a man—to be an ex-man or ‘damned ghost’—would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in its self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will.”[19] Interestingly, Lewis utilizes the image of a ghost also in this citation, and explains the reasoning behind its usage: we need God to reveal who we are before our eyes, to bring us out of our self-centered delusion into reality. As Lewis sees it, the other is necessary for any sort of morality. Thomas Watson traces this underlying theological position that Lewis assumes in The Great Divorce to St. Augustine’s idea of the fall of Lucifer: “Satan, who, with a number of apostate angels, chose to lift themselves up in amor, the love of secondary goods, and separate from God and Heavenly communion. In so doing, Satan and his followers lost true being, which is had only by remaining in communion with God.”[20] This idea is central to Lewis’s argument against Blake and to his stylistic approach for writing, because he wants to show that Man’s reality resembles Lucifer’s, because it is in choice were he ends up. Given this, Lewis suggests:

I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that      the doors of Hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that ghosts may not wish to come out of Hell, in the vague way fashion wherein an envious man ‘wishes to be happy’: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self- abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good.[21]

Lewis’s italicization of the word inside suggests that the self is Hell: we remain in Hell by locking ourselves inside ourselves. And thus, the one in Hell gets what he wants, “He has his wish—to lie wholly in the self and to make the best of what he finds there. And what he finds there is Hell.” This explains why the ghosts distrust the Spirits so much, even though the Spirits are only there to help them, because trusting another person requires that we admit that we are not completely independent, that we are not above another. For Lewis, to become completely vulnerable, admitting that we are incomplete ‘ghosts,’ is part of the first move we can make towards becoming truly human.

Other people then, are not so much Hell, but are one of the closest things that we have to Heaven on Earth. They, like God, can bring us out of ourselves, help us recognize our faults, and are therefore necessary for our well-being: “The taste for the other, that is, the very capacity for enjoying good, is quenched in him except in so far as his body still draws him into some rudimentary contact with an outer world.”[22] No one, as Lewis suggests, would desire to live in a world that is devoid of others, for our experience makes nothing clearer that other people make up most of our greatest joys. We see this during the last conversation between the Tragedian and the Lady, at the moment she makes him laugh, because for that small time period he goes outside himself, because “No people find each other more absurd than lovers.”[23] Therefore the reason why we, like the ghosts, often have a problem with others is that in the eye of the other we are forced outside of ourselves for a brief moment, and become annoyed that we should have to recognize what we really are. This we see also at the beginning, when the narrator notices that the passengers on the bus are hostile towards the driver, even though he “[c]ould see nothing in the countenance of the Driver to justify all of this.”[24] According to Lewis, it is a symptom of an inflated ego that makes the presences of others so unbearable.

The enjoyment of others, much like Heaven, lies in choosing either ourselves or God. During one conversation, a Spirit tells a mother, “You cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God.” This strikes her as absurd, because she feels that she knows what true love is, for she had given all of her life to her son, even after his death. In another conversation, one ghost is recorded criticizing a Spirit because he had been a murderer. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” asks the ghost, to which the Spirit responds “I do not look at myself. I have given up myself… And that was how everything began.”[25] For the mother and the murderer alike, our love for others, either for a son or for a murderer, is only possible if we first love God, recognize him as a thou, not as an It: “For love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.”[26] Thus, “the whole treatment consists in learning to want God for His own sake.”[27] The murderer admitted he was nothing and was forgiven, the ghost admits neither, and ends up treating the Spirit as an it. Although the ghost criticizes him, the Spirit is not bothered and does not get mad at his judgments, because he recognizes him as a thou, not because he needs to, but for who he is. The same is true for the mother even though she loved her son, for she still treated him as an it, because her love was driven by her need to love. But if she were to first love God for his own sake, she would be able to love her son a thou, a child meant not only for her, but also for God. This then, is the root of all love, “we shall have no need for one another now: we can begin to love truly.”[28] Throughout the story, this becomes a reoccurring issue that the Spirits address: our desires often begin well, but end up being about us and become a source for pride. This essentially is the punishment that people receive in Hell, “The trouble is they have no Needs. You get everything you want (not very good quality, of course) by just imagining it.” [29]   Enjoying others lies then in our choice to go outside of ourselves, to recognize everyone as thou, not because we need to, but that we should love them truly  for who they are, and thus, recognize their reality apart from us. Lewis points out that otherness is implied in creation, and is necessary for the possibility of love: “He caused things to be other than Himself that, being distinct, they might learn to love Him, and achieve union instead of sameness.” Love is the fullest expression of harmony, as it demands that we recognize that others are equally in importance to us and take their well-being into consideration. In Heaven, “The Glory flows into everyone, and back from everyone: like light and mirrors”[30], for everyone is focused on what is greater than them, “we think only of Christ.”[31]

Although Lewis’s and Sartre’s philosophies differ drastically when it comes to the role of others in our lives, and on other topics such as Hell’s existence itself, there are similarities that exist between No Exit and The Great Divorce. The biggest similarity between the two is the emphasis both place on the finality of Hell, forcing us to focus on our choices: good or bad. As one Spirit notes, “What concerns you is the nature of the choice itself,”[32] and like the Spirit, Garcin acknowledges, “I made my choice. A man is what he wills himself to be.”[33] Because of this, Lewis and Sartre both made a point to express the freedom that the characters had to leave Hell. In this way, Lewis and Sartre utilized the image of Hell to communicate the implications they thought their ideas had on our lives more effectively. In this way, both writers treat Hell as a sort of thought experiment, as it emphasizes the importance for us to choose. Thus Hell represents a reality which had already in some sense existed on Earth. For Lewis, those in Hell get to have only themselves; for Sartre, they get to have others.

While they shared some similarities in their stylistic usage of Hell, it is not hard to see that Sartre’s philosophy is based on the mentality that Lewis criticized. According to Lewis’s understanding, it is no surprise that we find Inez, Garcin, and Estelle in Hell, for “Hell is a state of mind” while “Heaven is reality.”[34] An interesting parallel between Sartre and Lewis is that both use sensorial perception to communicate the realness of their situation, although Lewis emphasizes the realness of Heaven, Sartre emphasized the realness of Hell; and it is why the two emphasized the realness of one and not the other, that we discover where the conflict lies. For Sartre, Hell is in the eyes of others. Therefore, the Hell that we experience in the presence of others is the most real. For Lewis, Hell is an imaginary place created out of the desires of the ego, and thus Heaven is real, because it is where the other exists. As Lewis showed throughout The Great Divorce, though Sartre’s conclusion “Hell is other people”[35] seems legitimate prima facie, it is in the end lacking because others do limit us when we understand the world as an It or a place only for our needs. Of necessity, they would always get in the way. If we are always caught up in our self, others become Hell, because they do not allow us to continue to live in an imaginary, ego-centric world. Yet when we look away towards the good outside of ourselves, who we are and what we do is not founded on us, “the soul is but a hollow which God fills in.”[36]

WORKCITED

Buber, Martin. I And Thou. Great Britian: Hesperides Press, 2008.

Lewis, C. S. “The Great Divorce.” In The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics. roughcut ed. Grand Rapids, MI: HarperOne, 2007.

Lewis, C. S. “The Problem of Pain.” In The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics. roughcut ed.  Grand Rapids, MI: HarperOne, 2007.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. No Exit, and Three Other Plays. Vintage International ed. New York: Vintage,             1989.

Watson, Thomas Ramey. “Enlarging Augustinian systems: C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce and      Till We Have Faces.” Renascence 46, no. 3 (Spring94 1994): 163. Religion and     Philosophy Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2012).

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[1] Martin Buber, I And Thou (Great Britian: Hesperides Press, 2008), 3.

[2] Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit, and Three Other Plays, Vintage International ed. (New York: Vintage, 1989), 4.

[3] Ibid., 5.

 [4] Ibid., 9.

 [5] Ibid., 8.

[6] Ibid., 21.

[7] Ibid., 29.

 [8] Ibid., 44.

 [9] Ibid., 42.

[10] Ibid., 43.

[11] Ibid., 45.

[12] Lewis, C.S., “The Great Divorce,” in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics [Deckle Edge] Publisher: HarperOne; Roughcut Edition (New York City: HarperCollins, 2007), 471.

[13] Ibid., 477.

 [14] Ibid., 465.

 [15] Ibid., 507.

[16] Ibid., 498.

[17] Ibid., 499.

 [18] Ibid., 481.

 [19] Ibid., 625.

[20] Watson, Thomas Ramey. “Enlarging Augustinian systems: C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce and     Till We Have Faces.” Renascence 46, no. 3 (Spring94 1994): 163.

[21] Lewis, The Problem of Pain, pg. 626.

[22] Ibid., 623.

[23] Lewis, The Great Divorce, pg. 533.

 [24] Ibid., 468.

 [25] Ibid., 480.

 [26] Lewis, The Problem of Pain, pg. 639.

 [27] Lewis, The Great Divorce, pg. 518.

 [28] Ibid., 532.

 [29] Ibid., 473.

[30] Ibid., 523.

[31] Ibid., 488.

 [32] Ibid., 504.

 [33] Sartre, No Exit, pg. 43.

[34] Lewis, The Great Divorce, pg. 504.

[35] Sartre, No Exit, pg. 43.

 [36] Lewis, The Problem of Pain, pg. 635.

A Rough Essay on Depeche Mode and Faith

About a year and a half ago, I was looking at the website of a band whose music I enjoy, Iszoloscope. I noted some of their influences, wrote them down, and listened to a few songs by each of them. Depeche Mode stood out as a brillant band with substantive, meaningful lyrics. DM’s music has certainly gone through many transitions (e.g., the difference is quite significant betweenSpeak & Spell [1981] and Playing the Angel [2005]). However, the first album I listened to and purchased, Violator, is a decent sample of their work. It’s not as dark as their Black Celebration, but it retains the same depth of emotion and strength of articulation that it had. Also, this album is one of their most purchased in the US, and if you’ve heard any of their songs, you’ve likely heard one from here. Indeed, if you’re a big fan of Johnny Cash or Marilyn Manson, then you’ve heard the lyrics to “Personal Jesus.” They’ve both done covers of the song. It was the first song I heard by them and it is certainly one of their best all-around tracks. The music is phenomenal, and the lyrics are rhythmic, moving, and subtle. The song expresses something that is common to human experience in a fresh and profound sense: The nature of faith–without God.

However, before developing the ideas of this song specifically, it is necessary to briefly outline some of the major themes in DM’s work. Depeche Mode’s “philosophy,” if one may talk about bands expositing a philosophy, is essentially a post-theistic modernist humanism. Depeche Mode never speaks like the “New Atheists” (read: “bad Voltaire knock-offs”), pretentiously scoffing at God’s lack of existence (“John the Revelator,” Playing the Angel, gets close, though). Rather, the world in which DM operates is a world where there is simply no recourse to God. Human relationships are, therefore, of primary importance. Human symbology and social practices have meaning and teleology even though they may have no essential meaning (“Blue Dress,” Violator is the best example, but “World Full of Nothing,” Black Celebration develops the same idea). DM even deals with the human experience of what Christians would call sin (“Halo,” Violator, “When the Body Speaks,” Exciter, “The Sinner in Me,” Playing the Angel). There is no escape from banality, ugliness, and imperfection. Though DM regularly asserts that human relationships are the partial answer to the desperate nature of existence, even other people are often simply a drug which briefly allow us escape from the importance issues in life (“Sweetest Perfection”, Violator). As all good atheists do, they powerfully articulate the despair that the definitively insoluble problem of evil brings upon us (“Precious,” Playing the Angel). Modernism, here I mean the presumption that reason is the provider of the criteria by which we adjudicate between potential explanations of reality, as such is not explicitly developed in their work, as far as I know, but it is a necessary presumption of the concepts in many of their songs. The song “Stripped,” from Exciter, deals with this to some extent with regard to developing one’s individuality and interacting with other individuals. In sum, in a godless world, where reason makes us cynical, forcing the recognition of the horror of existence and death upon us, each individual must struggle forward, attempting to find fulfillment in the only life there is (“Damaged People,” Playing the Angel).

Finally, then, “Personal Jesus” should be placed within this developing philosophy of Depeche Mode.  It opens with the bold phrase: Reach out and touch faith. This line really expresses the central message of the song. The last word, faith, seems an odd word for DM to use, given their philosophy. The speaker of the lyric claims to be the “personal Jesus” for the respondent.  He is “second best” to Christ, but the respondent has to take what he can get. The speaker is there, “someone who cares…someone to hear your prayers.” He is near–all that you must do is pick up the phone, and he’ll be there for you.

First, Depeche Mode is implying a prescriptive statement here: Faith should be something grounded tangibly. The reason you should “take second best” is because Christ isn’t there, he doesn’t care, and he doesn’t respond to your prayers. DM is not trying to convert anyone to atheism. They do not offer any arguments for God’s non-existence. DM is reaching out to the individual who feels unknown and alone; that is, the one who already agrees with them that Christ is silent in their helpless position. Whereas Christ asks for a leap of faith, the personal Jesus is “flesh and bone”—an empirical ground for your faith is present whenever you need it. The term “personal Jesus” implies something itself: each person needs a being who cares about them in their individuality.

Second, therefore, faith is fundamentally relational. As an example from Christian theology, consider the difference between Melanchthon’s definition of faith as assensus and Luther’s as fiducia. The former defines faith as an intellectual affirmation of the truths of Christianity, whereas the latter is something similar to a relational dependence upon and trust in Christ. Depeche mode accepts something along the lines of fiducia, although the ultimacy of the dependence-relation is necessarily mitigated somewhat. Personal contact is what leads to faith and belief in the person who takes the place of Jesus.

Lastly, this faith is capable of three things according to the song: self-definition, forgiveness, and the reception of supplication. The Christian God is silent when an individual is trudging through some of the worst parts of life. Whether we are suffering because of pain, another’s pain, or because of the recognition of our own sin, Christ’s love is often conspicuously absent. Other people, however, and those closest to us, will often still be there in those times. One’s self is inextricably bound to such relationships, and it is through the comfort of other caring individuals that we find our questions interacted with and our sinful selves lovingly accepted.

Depeche Mode gets things wrong about faith, but aside from that they don’t hold to an ontology that makes faith meaningful in its essence, not much. That’s a huge “aside from,” but considering they don’t hold to such, it’s more surprising how much they get right. The describe faith as it is often considered it the Christian religion, but they change the object of that faith. They put their faith in a different entity, yet they still strongly recognize the human need for acceptance, forgiveness and deliverance.

As a side note, it may seem that there are additional problems here. This song ignores the difficulties of putting one’s faith in another, both from the perspective of the person putting faith in the other, and the other failing to live up to the standards of good faith. However, that isn’t the purpose of this song, and they do deal with those issues in other places. DM is acutely aware of the fallibility of human existence. See “I Want It All,” Playing the Angel, for the former problem, and “It Doesn’t Matter Two”, Black Celebration for the latter. These problems are there considered, but whether they are able to adequately solve them is entirely a different question.

In the end, of course, Depeche Mode is just a band, and they don’t claim to present an utterly consistent system of philosophy. As the hymnists for an existentialistic humanism, however, they are exceptionally well-suited. “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” wasn’t a theology, but it moved people emotionally through the song to Lutheran principles in the lyrics. Similarly, “Personal Jesus” is a powerful expression of the humanist’s plight without Christ.

[Note: I originally wrote this in a different context, so forgive some of the preparatory material included that makes it so long. I intend eventually to write a series of posts on Depeche Mode, because I think their work warrants at least some critical investigation. If it ever materializes, the first post will recap a lot of what is in that prolegomena so that other posts about the band (hopefully one per album) can simply refer back to it.]