Philosophy in Simple (Enlight.-Roman.)

If you ever felt that all of that philosophical garble went straight by you, here is your chance to try and make some sense of it. I've simplified and tried to explain four major philosophies.

Here we go... Have fun (if thats even possible)


Spinoza, the Early Enlightenment & the Baroque

During the 17th and first half of the 18th century art, music, or even thought was ‘under the thumb’ of the conservatively thinking Catholic church. Creative minds were forced to express the church’s views, but this never stopped them from “folding in” their own often directly opposing ones into their work. Any such acts had to be done with the utmost precision, so that the church would approve (and more importantly commission) the painting, book or musical piece without noticing the subversive elements, or by giving them such a meaning that could be interpreted either way.

One of the leading thinkers of this time, Baruch Spinoza was heavily reliant on how these counter-reformative authorities interpreted his work. In order to publish his works without consequence, Spinoza had to write in such a way that would disguise his progressive enlightenment thoughts as something acceptable to society at that time. He used many simple but effective methods to mask multiple subversive elements such as enlightenment science, ethics and religion into seemingly religious material.

The first method he used was probably the simplest of all: he wrote in Latin. This seemingly unimportant fact was actually very important, since only the upper classes and scholars still knew Latin. He also wrote in such a complex manner that even these people didn’t understand everything. By doing so, he guaranteed that the authorities would get lost in his words and wouldn’t be able to spot the enlightenment ideas. This probably saved Spinoza during his time, but as a consequence made his work so complicated that it still isn’t fully understood today.

If somebody did manage to sift through his complex style of writing, Spinoza prepared another form of ‘cloaking-device’. He constantly repeated the word ‘God’ in whatever he wrote. Even though his books and essays were entirely unreligious, the repetition of this word meant that any censor would be fooled into thinking it was the entire opposite and probably lay the book down after a couple of pages.

Finally, if anyone did label something he wrote illegal or ‘dangerous to society’, the police would probably start looking for somebody who didn’t even exist since Spinoza wrote with multiple pseudonyms.

With his real means cleverly masked, Spinoza was free to discuss topics that were ‘taboo’ during his time. One of the most radical views he held was about the immanence of God. Spinoza believed that ‘God’ was everywhere around us; in the sky, in nature, or even a simple rock. This was in direct contrast to the religion of the time, which preached that God and everything associated with him comes from the transcendental. (i.e. From ‘above’ or ‘far away’) He accepted the cognitive limits of humans and the fact that humans could only understand and accept two out of the five properties of God. (Infinite, indivisible, unary, indeterminable and unimaginable) Spinoza wasn’t an atheist though, even though he didn’t believe in a God that the religions preached he was absolutely certain about ‘his’ immanent God. In his point of view, the presence of finite things such as scientific properties and time demanded the presence of the infinite. And these infinite properties were his definition of God.

His views on ethics were also very radical in his time, yet he still managed to ‘fold’ into his ‘Ethics, On the Origin and Nature of the Affects’, the way they are both relative and absolute. (Rather than only absolute) Ethics, he thought, were individual as much as universal. Something that would seem unethical for one may be otherwise for another. He also didn’t believe in a ‘black vs. white’, ‘good vs. evil’ world. Rather than judging things by this method, he felt acts and deeds were on a sort of scale, ranging from ethical to unethical, but without a clear mid-way point. More importantly, he believed that this scale was different for each individual and didn’t come from the transcendent. (i.e. The Ten Commandments) His ‘Theory of Affects’ was an unprecedented interpretation of this individuality of man and his values. He went on to describe man’s desire for happiness, as a result of both passive and active affects. He felt that one should try to experience as many active affects (caused by our own person) as possible, replacing passive affects (caused by the external) by active ones. This would mean that people as individuals would be responsible for their emotions, rather than having their emotions controlled by the surroundings. For example, one should try to find out what makes him happy and then do it, rather than rely on someone else making him happy whenever he needs it. This form of acknowledgement would in turn allow us to do only that which we need at any particular moment rather than succumb to a situation.

Discussing ethics and religion in his time was very difficult, but equally difficult was the topic of science. In a time when a fierce battle was fought, where people either stood on the side of religion or science, that controlled the universe, Spinoza decided to approach the topic from a completely different perspective. Rather than having only religion and only science, he opted for a combination. While religion denied science and science denied the existence of God, Spinoza accepted both and discussed the way each contributed to man’s understanding of the world. I discussed earlier that Spinoza thought that people didn’t have the intellectual capacity to understand everything in this world. This led to his views that science can be used to understand the finite properties of the world (movement of objects, chemical structure…) but it cannot be used in the same way for the infinite. (God) Thus science cannot take the place of religion as our form of understanding of the infinite. While this view wasn’t entirely radical, it still didn’t elevate religion above science and couldn’t have been expressed freely.

Ethics. Religion. Science. Individualism. All of these radical ideas and much more were hidden in the thought of Baruch Spinoza, but this man wasn’t the only progressive mind of his time that had to camouflage their work to portray two views at once. Rembrandt Van Rijn is another man who had to appear pro-church and blue-blooded kings on the glittering outside, while expressing enlightenment ideas in the dark corners of his paintings.

Rembrandt, like Spinoza, was tied to the Catholic Church. Before and during his time, only kings and churches commissioned paintings and therefore artists were forced to paint what the church ordered. This made it very hard for artists with subversive views to express them. Rembrandt, who was definitely an enlightenment thinker, had to paint deeply religious paintings for the church, but even in those we can see the same ‘fold’ of subversive ideas as in Spinoza.

For example, even when drawing the Holy Family, Rembrandt never drew any majestic halos and when he really had (or may have been forced) to draw one; it was such a faint thin golden circle that one could hardly see it. This was completely different form the previous Renaissance period, where angels would fly around with their golden wings and everyone had giant flaring halos.

Rembrandt drew all of his paintings, even those of the religious figures in a very photo-like manner. He especially paid attention to the play of light on figures and wanted to make everything as realistic as possible. This was ok, when dealing with somebody’s portrait, but when it came to the church it was problematic at best. The Catholics (/Protestants) wanted to portray the religious figures as transcendental while Rembrandt kept on giving them a natural sense. This is very similar to Spinoza’s idea of the immanent vs. transcendental.

Rembrandt then went on to commission paintings from the aristocracy. Again, this was more of the upcoming enlightenment. By finding a way to paint without going through the ‘approved by the church’ process, he was able to express more and more of his ideas. In a way, this was an early start to the rise of individualism. Rembrandt focused on individual values and needs rather than accept the church as the ultimate control to society.

Many other artists, thinkers and musicians joined in this underground enlightenment, but their methods of hiding their ideas in their work were very similar to those discussed above and whether the method was Vermeer’s estrangement to society or Bach making whatever music he pleased, it all joined together to form the ‘fold’ of progressive currents in the Baroque period.




Jean-Jacques Rousseau-Enlightenment Thinker or Early Romantic?



In the Second Discourse Jean-Jacques Rousseau creates a hypothetical story that describes the evolution of man unto his time. In this story he tries to explain how the nature of man leads to inequality and corruption in the world.

At first, man is described as an animal. An animal that believes the world belongs to itself and none other. He describes how man’s chief desire of self-preservation led to the advancement of the means of survival (weapons) and man himself. Similar to Darwin’s: Survival of the fittest, the amount of men grew and each had to keep on making advancements to make sure they were the ones that survived. Different climates led to different evolution (fishermen, hunters…) and formed cultures of people of the same characteristic. In these groups, men began comparing themselves with others, feeling pride and trying to rise above the others.

People grew more advanced and the creation of houses led to the first major breakthrough since men stopped being simple animals. Houses furthered the difference between the classes. In this case, the strongest grouping together in good huts while the weaker tried to imitate them. This led to families living under one roof. (Since everyone wanted to stay in their hut) Living in union was cause to the first indications of love and a division of tasks between men and women.

Rousseau imagined that it was then that language was created, since communication within families increased. The use of a common language then formed nations that were bound together by similar customs rather than law. As communication grew, so did love and the value of leisure. Now, not only were there the strongest and weakest, but the best and worst dancers, singers actors etc. This furthered the inequality between men. As rivalry and inequality rose, men began to value only themselves and became cruel. Cruelties became more and more common and more and more severe punishments had to be invented and the first need for a universal set of laws and maxims surfaced.

Agriculture and the use of iron created another tumult in Rousseau’s hypothetical society. The use of these two raw materials led to further division of labour and the need for compensation. (For there was no money then of course) Everything would have worked fine, but the realization that the one who did most work should get more than the one that did less added even more to this rising problem of inequality.

The inequality grew until finally a war broke out. Men fought each other, but in the end it benefited nobody. Both the rich and poor lost what they had fought for as everybody battled each other. When a single man decided to join men together and form a society, everybody saw their own benefits in it and didn’t hesitate. Since a single society was created, others had to follow to keep up and so countries were formed and laws and governing bodies created.

Again, human nature led to more inequality. Due to their own self-preservation, the upper classes made sure they’d pass laws to keep them in the upper class while the lower ones hopelessly fought with the cruelties of their leaders to survive. Rousseau then goes on to describe how societies evolved, making the rich richer, poor poorer and the powerful even more so.

I think Rousseau believes that the human race went wrong the most at the moment when a single leader was spawned out of the mess of inequalities. We can see this in the paragraph of the Second Discourse where he writes the speech of the leader of men to the people, starting ‘Let us join…’ (A Dissertation on the Origin… Page 8) In this speech he speaks of guarding the weak from oppression and general equality, which evoke a positive image and we seem to accept this as good, but in the next paragraph we can see that Rousseau really believed otherwise. Here, he says that the barbarous men were ‘seduced’, which doesn’t have very positive connotations at all. He also describes the way they all ‘ran headlong to their chains’. I think this is clear evidence that Rousseau thought humanity’s mistake was to accept the rule of a single man. He also adds that with enough experience they could have foreseen that these words were lies and not accepted this tyranny, which would have prevented the whole thing. In the next few pages he also stresses the point that this is a stream of events that once started grow more and more serious and something has to be changed. This change is never described as religion or the church which would be the first idea to come to mind but reformation of the fundamental values people share.

I think Rousseau is in a way both a Romantic and an Enlightenment thinker, but weighing more on the Romantic side. Yes, he appeared to be an enlightenment individualist who thought everyone should do as they like and think for themselves, but he carried many more Romantic characteristics. (Individualism could also be interpreted as both an Enlightenment and Romantic trait anyways) For example his views on the relationship between men and women, the beauty of nature or even the acknowledgement of women as beings with qualities are clear indicators of his Romantic tendencies. But as much as we could discuss whether he was a Romantic or an Enlightenment thinker or both, I think we will reach no clear conclusion due to the type of person he was. Rousseau preached friendship while himself having very few friends, he was a moralist but left his children, he wrote plays but hated theatre, because of this fact that he didn’t enact what he wrote, we can never be sure of what he appeared to be, and what he really felt himself.




The Enlightenment, and Self-Determination/Autonomy and Kant



Immanuel Kant believed that each man should set his own individual standards and rules (maxims) he should follow, making himself an autonomous being. His concept of self-determination works on the very simple level; that if everyone follows maxims that not only benefit themselves, but also society as a whole, there will be no need for laws and set rules and standards. These maxims do not have to be extremely complicated or thought out, but only a sort of moral guide to what is and isn’t acceptable.
The most crucial aspect of this system to function is the Kantian paradox. This is the fact that not only do we have to make our own maxims, but we also have to follow them. This makes us our own legislator (who passes the law/maxim), police (who makes sure the law is followed), judge (who determines punishment for breaking the law) and the executioner. (who deals the punishment) If we didn’t do so, the whole system wouldn’t work. i.e. The maxims have no value if they are not being followed. This rejects the fact that Kantian thought is anarchy. Kant lets us set our own maxims freely but then makes us follow them. In the case of anarchy, everybody does what thy want without limitations. {I believe that Kantian thought (tied in with the Kantian paradox) is a method of letting everyone set their own maxims, but relying on the fact that they are sensible people and will abide to them. More simply, it’s the thought of doing what common sense tells you is right or wrong, not what religion or any other authority preaches etc.}
The categorical imperative is a sort of test for our maxims, to see if they could be universalized. It can be a question one asks when he considers a maxim. i.e. Maxim: I will kill people on sight. Categorical imperative: If everybody in the world killed on sight, what would that mean? OR What would it mean for me if everybody else followed my own maxim? In this case the person would realize that this isn’t a realistic maxim. (Considering he even thought of it, though I doubt such a person would care) On the other hand, if the maxim we chose passes this ‘test’, then we can probably say that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to follow. If everybody takes the categorical imperative in mind, all maxims chosen will be beneficial for both the individual but also society. This creates certain norms by which we act.
Kant thinks we come to know these norms by acknowledging the fact that everyone else around us is also an autonomous being, who also has their set of maxims. If we take this into account when we act, we realize what we should and should not do. Example: When one considers this question: ‘What if I puncture that guy’s front tire?’ But acknowledges the other person is an autonomic being, he can put himself in the other person’s shoes. Making it: ‘What if somebody punctured my front tire?’ This sort of realization is essential for creating maxims. If we take all the others around us into account while creating them, they will probably be better maxims.
Five maxims that I follow and believe could be universalized are:
• Play your music reasonably loud, so you don’t bother the neighbours
• Don’t touch/use anyone else’s mobile phone
• Do not clean up other people’s mess
• Do not distract a person who is in full control of you life (talking to a driver)
• Do not argue about something when you don’t have enough information, or worse, don’t argue a point you know is wrong
I think these five maxims could be universalized without any harm to the world. I can still remember the times when I couldn’t sleep at night because some man kept on playing heavy metal music next door. Today I do pretty much the same, but I always think about the neighbour and the time I couldn’t sleep. I think that if everyone played their music a bit more considerably there would be a lot more advantages than disadvantages.
When it comes to leaving other people’s mobile phones alone, I think we are talking common sense. Yet people still pick up those little machines and start reading text messages and browsing through pictures. I definitely wouldn’t mind if this maxim was universalized and as for those people that really enjoy it, I’m sure they’d find a better thing to do like going through people’s emails!
The third maxim could be generalized even more to: acknowledging personal property. Nothing can be more annoying than when you come back from a hard day’s work and realize everything you laid down somewhere isn’t where it was. This would probably be a troublesome one to universalize, since there are those people that have such messy rooms (kids, teenagers) that cleaning up after them is a must. But a general over 18 years of age clause should do the trick. Therefore: ‘Do not clean up after somebody older than 18.’ I must admit that this still wouldn’t solve everything, but if applied to particular situations it couldn’t hurt if some people finally realized that items are often placed where they will be found, rather than where somebody else thinks they will be found quicker.
The fourth, I think, should be common sense for everyone already; sadly it is not the case. If everyone around the world took more care while talking to someone who is driving (or didn’t do it at all) I believe the world (well at least the roads) would be a safer place to live in.
Finally, I often find myself arguing about something when I know I don’t have enough information to support my points, at that moment I stop arguing and either postpone the topic or admit ‘defeat’. Wouldn’t it be great though, if everyone did this? How many days of our lives do we spend on arguing pointless topics when we don’t even know anything about them? I do realize in retrospect now, how devastating this maxim could be in the parliament!




The Age of Romanticism



What is Romanticism? Historians cannot agree upon a definition of romanticism but describe it as either a positive or a negative reaction to the enlightenment. I believe that romanticism is simple enlightenment that isn’t hiding (folding multiple ideas into each other) behind anything anymore. It is a free form of self-expression where anything no matter how radical is allowed. It allows enlightenment thinkers to break loose and revolutionize or retract back and take a much more calm approach. Either way, I think there are multiple characteristics that are evident in Romantic writing, art and music and will try to extrapolate on these using the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Francisco de Goya and Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was a pro-revolution anarchist. He spent the majority of his life as a sort of idealistic romantic. It is apparent in his work, that he was filled by a surge of emotions that needed to be expressed. Shelley was appalled by the current situation in the world and it was probably because of this, that his poetry is so idealistic and naively optimistic even in terrible situations. His poems can be seen as a direct reaction to the way Shelley saw the world. For example his Julian and Maddalo is a beautiful description of the happiness of two men as they ride along a river. He describes all the things going on around them in such a way that all seems fair and calm, when in fact the two men are surrounded by tragedy. The Romanticism in his work is exactly this extravagant emotional engagement in everything. In another of his works, Queen Mab, he describes the ‘beauty’ of death. Later it describes a conversation between several characters and spirits where he ponders the questions of his time. ‘Is there a God?’ is the most famous example. This ability and eagerness to discuss topics that were taboo earlier is the principle of Romanticism. There is no fear of persecution, no hiding of ideas; he can simply state whatever he feels no matter what his views may be.
Francisco de Goya was similar to Shelley in many ways. Even though he wasn’t an idealist, rather a slightly paranoid man with delusions of persecution. His work was extremely revolutionary and most people were appalled by it. This is another trait of the Romantic age: getting a reaction. Whether it was good or bad, romantics always sought a reaction to their work, the more radical the better. During the latter years of his life, Goya decorated his house with dark paintings that portrayed his hellish visions as he grew more and more sick. It was a custom of the Romantic period to paint whatever one had in mind and this was exactly what Goya did. The gruesome and dark paintings were a mirror image of his troubled mind, but the fact that he still expressed himself in such a way, I believe, makes him a Romantic artist.
Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin is another famous romantic. It is important to note that Chopin was deeply influenced by the Polish writer Mickiewicz. Mickiewicz was the leader of the Polish Romantic Movement who lived most of his life in exile. Chopin admired his fellow countryman, especially his Ballady i Romance. It is interesting to note that Chopin’s most famous work was composed during the few times these two romantics met. (eg. Mazurka in f minor 1849) Chopin wrote music from a very early age, very much like Mozart, and was often compared to him. Like Mozart in his latter years, Chopin was famous for expressing a giant range of emotions sometimes even directly opposing each other within one piece. He was quick to use the horn and new winds and strings to give his music more texture and allow himself to express his emotions better. The use of new instruments and combinations was trademark to the Romantic period. It is this experimentation with new musical combinations and ‘moody’ melodies that make him a trademark Romantic composer.
When these three creative minds are taken into account I believe we are left with a fairly good idea about what distinguishes romantics. In the beginning of this question I gave a simple definition of Romanticism, but through my perception of what is Romanticism I’ve reached the conclusion that it doesn’t call for a definition, simply for an acknowledgement of a large group of different talents that have one thing in common: the need for emotional expression.