19 On Encountering Antiquity (Ⅲ)
Permit me yet one last explanatory remark: why I keep coming back to the concept of “Antiquity.” In the last few years the enterprise of philosophy has imperceptibly changed; and this only shortly preceding its withdrawal from public discourse entirely (at least in Germany).
Every debate ended, time and again, on the question of the sense (or lack of it) of historiography and philosophy in general. Until finally, in certain parts of the world—especially the Anglo-Saxon part, which remains under the influence of analytical philosophy (the “philosophy of science”)—it was effectually asserted: history, archæology, and study of the fine arts are no science as such, nor is philosophy. Psychoanalysis, and numerous other disciplines, were best struck from the program of studies in toto.
Philosophies oriented towards the natural sciences—the new Aristotelians, so to speak—had for some time already withdrawn from the investigation into the logical soundness, or even simply the accuracy, of the basic statements and “truths” of natural-science research, or from natural laws, and subordinated them to the sovereignty of Number and computation. An information-theoretical æsthetic even developed—here and now, in Stuttgart of the 70s with the faculty chair of Max Bense, who wanted to compute the “good” in the arts (what is good art?) mathematically. He even attained some results, though these I found altogether less than convincing. Some offshoots of his thinking may be found in the poems of Helmut Heißenbüttels and his influential literary school “Gruppe 47;” the art of Otto H. Hajek (among others) may also be a part of it.
One observed again in philosophy—now mutated into a philosophy of science—a strict differentiation between natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences; and of these, the last two―as a verifiable or reproducible numeralization (or even digitization) was not possible―were not regarded with a wholly unequivocal endorsement of their right to future existence. At the center of this criticism stood, naturally, Marxism and dialectic materialism, with their eminently political influence and devastating after-effects.
Whither these subjects of study, whither this thinking, and whither all of this, especially at a university, which indeed must concern itself with technical and economic questions as its focus, to the betterment of mankind―and, not to put to fine a point on it, to earn decent money? Thus we saw the beginning of the dismantling of Departments of Archæology, Musicology, and other hothouse plants of the academy. Thus was the writing of history likewise now per definitionem no longer a true scholarly science, nor art criticism, nor the social sciences, nor political science, the teaching of comprehension and understanding even less so. As academic and research subjects, they were all wholly inappropriate, at least for a university, which indeed must concern itself with technical and economic questions as its focus, to the betterment of mankind―and, not to put to fine a point on it, to earn … but I repeat myself.
In light of this, historiography undertook to alter itself radically. No longer would only the history “from on high” be written or studied. No longer should solely a history of rulers, victors, and battles won with numerous sacrifices be considered worthy of grateful memorial, and entry in the books of praise or study. A “history from below” should now migrate, by contrast, to the center of all future research endeavors. The lives of simple people ought likewise to be considered, their sufferings, struggles, and sacrifices: playing out beyond the walls of castles and palaces, for “those above.” Not only victories, but also defeats and suffering must be included in the final calculation of size and importance in historiography, thereby a change of paradigm in a science that ostensibly wasn’t a science any more regardless.
In philosophy as well, shortly before its complete departure from the stage and its reduction to a theory or philosophy of science, a further reconceptualization spread, once again originating in France. Away from the abstract ranges of the intellect, the incomprehensible hermeneutic attempts at interpretation, aided by the study of language or psychoanalysis; away even from the internationally so successful forefathers of the “postmodern” and their literary excursions and interpretations in the style of Derrida, Baudrillard, or Lyotard. Thus, away also from art, from artistic-philosophic discourse as a complement to the stifling technical language of analytic (Anglo-Saxon) philosophy.
No more abstractly or artificially oriented provocations, but rather inquiries more practical for everyday living would come once again to the fore. The history of Classical philosophy would investigate, concretely and quite fascinatingly, philosophy as a way of life. Publications from Pierre Hadot, among others, went this route. What was all that about Diogenes in his barrel? or Socrates and Alcibiades in bed, was he really not allowed to touch him (who and whom?)? was Plato, in his youth, really a catamite (as apparently claimed by a personal invective of Antisthenes), why then did he so reject desire? What did the rival schools of Athens seek to do, and did the Greek philosophers, even before Plato, actually meet, and treasure, the Gymnosophists (that is, Hindu Dervishes in India)?
This new approach, towards a “philosophy from below” contains, again, wholly practical advice for daily living, “wie man zer werlte solte leben” (Walther von der Vogelweide),i and fills once more―with ethical inquiries―that lacuna left behind by the extinction of religious inquiry with all its ethical-moral contexts. To say nothing of the artificial language of analytical philosophy, which yet still sought to prove the logical or linguistic “nonsense” of numerous philosophers (teeth were sunk particularly vigorously into Freudian Marxism, or Heidegger’s existentialism and its “incomprehensibility”).
Alongside this in the last three decades, as I see it, parallel to a rethinking-process in the Islamic world (there even the occidental concept of reason, upon which our whole view of human rights is based, was rejected), new philosophical axiomata were put forth in the West, which claimed universal validity and have insensibly dissolved, usurped, and conquered almost the whole of public word-play in this country and some parts of the globalized world. They lay claim to the power to define and interpret.
In scientific―that is, now exclusively the natural-scientific―thinking this is the Anglo-Saxon empiricism, also numeralism, that only recognizes that which may be “documented,” calculated, in numbers or statistics as true and correct. For only in this manner is technology, that is progress, and as I see it also regression, truly attained. Especially influential here is behaviorism, which objectifies and computes human beings as things, conditions them, seeks to control them (“social engineering”).
The second axiom here derived, likewise the (unprovable) support of a further philosophical doctrine, originates in economics, and in a colorful mixture of number-games, statistics, and mass conditioning overthrew all of its established laws, and proclaimed the acquisition of money (money for what? Exactly! Consumption, desire … ) as the absolute and ultimate purpose of the individual.
Considered together, so-called “economistic thinking,” in which behaviorism and numeralism meet with economics, only recognizes as true and correct that which allows the economy to “flower,” which may serve the needs of “growth,” which brings money and profit (and power, more on that later). The imperative of the market and market-economic thinking find, by way of mass-media manipulation (an important partial complex within the larger praxis of conditioning) the most ready access to a receptive home audience, from the humblest bungalows to the most opulent palaces.
“Beautiful” is defined by the private television broadcasters through the fashion and advertising industry; “just” is defined by new oligarchs and their legal teams, “true” is whatever is used in practice, or shown by GDP and the rate of unemployment. In this “all-encompassing cross-mixing relationship,” as Theodor Adorno in the sense of Herbert Marcuse (an influential Freudian Marxist) once stated with resignation, one’s own needs, requirements, or axiomata are no longer debated or considered, so long as no economic crises or breakdowns arise, and business flourishes. Philosophizing in the usual sense, including one wrapped in æsthetic garb as with Sartre, Camus, or Derrida, is “unscientific” and “out”―purely a waste of time, or (as once was said against Hegel) “definitions-poetry.”
It seems I have, indeed, lost myself too much in the particulars of cultural-political or philosophical-historical minutiæ, which one might just as easily look up oneself, or already knows. I might end this talk of “good living” with the phrase of Plato’s with which I began it.ii It strikes at the heart of every practical philosophy or philosophical way of living: “is it sufficient?” and thus I would restate the question here: “is it sufficient to carry out our lives in a pleasant manner, without reluctance?” Is it really enough? Or is there more, as it were, “to” it?
Does it suffice, to be able (or want to be able) to live a life full of enjoyment, joy, and desire?― No, full refrigerators, exciting computer games, fast cars, sex, drugs, television, and … (fill in the blank), they are no longer enough. Not enough for what? To be happy?
iThis phrase, in Middle High German, was written around 1200 CE, and has a comparable relationship to modern German as Chaucer has to modern English. Rendered in modern German it would read something like “wie man in dieser Welt sollte leben” (“how one of this world should live.”) -Ed.
ii “On Encountering Antiquity” is the new and expanded version of a commemorative speech I gave 2002-01-12 on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Prof. Erich Fischer, MD, at the invitation of the Kunstverein of the City of Leonberg, presented in Stuttgart. The title of the speech was “On Living Well.” Angelika Luz accompanied the presentation with songs of John Cage.
